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THE OPEN DOORS MENTORING PROGRAM, A PILOT Workshop #1: Art of Community On Friday, June 4, 2010, 23 newcomers, arts administrators, and social service representatives gathered in Baton Rouge at the State Library of Louisiana to mentor each other. Consultants Amy Skillman and Laura Marcus Green with the Institute of Cultural Partnerships in Harrisburg, PA, led us through an exciting day of learning and teaching. Everyone shared and everyone learned. The Open Doors / New Populations Project is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. We invited three community groups in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette to participate in this pilot. The goal is to prepare them to be ready to participate in the Decentralized Arts Funding Program and other funding options. As part of this pilot, they will receive a grant of up to $5000 and the grant guidelines are based on DAF. They will participate in a total of five mentoring workshops. In addition to this initial workshop described below, they are meeting individually with Kelly Pepper, Maida Owens, and their CDC about grantwriting, and they will participate in three more workshops that are tentatively on building organizational capacity (Wednesday, September 15 in New Orleans), marketing and fundraising (Saturday, November 13 in Baton Rouge), and resource, board management, and organization planning (Saturday, January 15 in Lafayette). We are now working out the details. Highlights of the day included presentations by the three cultural groups about their events, traditions, and art forms. The three groups include: Adelante, Inc., a Nicaraguan group in New Orleans, was represented by Alfredo and Martha Narvaez. Arturo Narvaez, Elba Rubi Martinez, Juan Jose Gutierrez, and Jose Arrechavala will be participating in the future. They want to enhance the music component of their annual event La Purisima by training the choir, improving the quality of their presentations including the sounds system, and improving their marketing. La Purisima was documented in the first phase of the New Populations Project: The Story of La Purisima and La Griteria: A Unique Nicaraguan Sacred Tradition Adapted to Louisiana. Asociación Cultural Latino-Acadiana, known as ACLA, is a pan Latino group that produces a Latin music festival annually in downtown Lafayette. They were represented by Juan Paredes, Luis Mora, Jose Vicente Blanco, and Carlos Contreras. Yasmin Carrizales will be joining them in the future. They want to enhance the quality of the talent presented and are exploring the possibility of adding presentations of crafts and other traditions and art forms. Yang Guang (Sunshine) Dance Troupe of Baton Rouge presents traditional and contemporary Chinese dance. They were represented by artistic director Xiaomei Seal and dancers Guiyan Wang and Dan Zhang. They produce Chinese Cultural Night and want to enhance the event by working with a dance master and improving their marketing. They were documented in the first phase of the New Populations Project: Balance of Grace and Strength: Chinese Folk Dancing in South Louisiana.
They were joined by their three CDCs: Karen Kern, Laura Larkin, and Gwen Richard. Also participating were Steve Thibodeaux with Louisiana Refugee Services Collaborative in New Orleans and the LDOA program staff. Catholic Charities Refugee Services staff will be participating in the future: Kristi Hackney (Baton Rouge), Martin Gutierrez (New Orleans), and Tina Quesada (Lafayette). Laura Marcus Green and Amy Skillman shared national models of collaboration between the arts and social services. They both drew upon their work with refugee arts. Prior to their collaboration, Laura worked with IRCO's Arts for New Immigrants Program in Portland, Oregon. One of her projects was a sewing circle culminated in the exhibtion, publication, and video, In My Country: A Gathering of Refugee and Immigrant Fiber Traditions. Another project involved intergenerational story circles that focused on sharing traditional arts and stories which helped senior refugees be less isolated and adjust to their new life.
Amy worked in central Pennsylvania with women on a story circle project that culminated in a theatrical production called Story Circle: Coming to America in the 21st Century and an exhibit called Our Voices: Refugee and Immigrant Women Tell Their Stories. This project is featured in the publication The Art of Community: Creativity at the Crossroads of Immigrant Cultures and Social Services.
Together they have advised similar initiatives in Boise, Idaho; South Carolina; Erie, Pennsylvania; and others. They shared many powerful stories about how the arts projects helped individuals adjust to their new life here. Such projects can also be useful to all seniors whether newcomers or not. Amy and Laura produced two publications which were provided to those attending. The Art of Community presents examples of collaboration between arts and social service organizations from across the United States. The Newcomer Arts manual provides an introduction to collaboration among arts, newcomers, and social services and the tools to build that collaboration along with national and Louisiana resource lists. More information about their Building Cultural Bridges initiative is online.
Amy and Laura led the group through several activities including a Ramble in which each person was asked to walk/ramble thinking about a story about the power of art in their life. This exercise prepared us for the afternoon task of writing one sentence describing the grant request.
In the afternoon, we broke into regional groups to work on focusing the grant request. Using a story circle, the group shared about their vision for the organization and worked towards identifying three goals for the grant. They verbally worked toward a grant narrative and budget items, and finally identified key action steps. Then each group reported back to everyone. The final task of the day was to outline strategies and topics for the remaining three sessions. The group decided that they wanted three more sessions, preferably on Saturdays and not full days, and no more than one meeting every other month. Outcomes As a result of this workshop there have been some exciting spin offs. Steve Thibodeaux has asked an LDOA representative to serve on the State Refugee Services Advisory Council and report about the Open Doors Pilot at their quarterly meetings. They want to explore the possibility of having a refugee arts initiative. Participants have learned about model projects, shared their experiences, and started mentoring relationships. All agreed that it was an eye-opening experience for all. Grants Following the June 4 workshop, the three groups have received technical assistance about writing grants and submitted grant applications to support their projects. After revising their grants based on the comments, they submitted final applications, which were approved Workshop #2: Building Organization Capacity On Wednesday, September 15, 2010, the second Open Doors Mentoring Workshop was held at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) to focus on building organizational capacity. We started with brief reports from Adelante and ACLA on how their projects are going. ACLA's Latin Festival is Saturday, October 2 in Lafayette, so they were in heavy production mode. Adelante's event, La Purisima is not until December 7, and they were focused on choir rehearsals. Representatives from Yang Guang (Sunshine) Dance Troupe were in China and not able to attend, but they will watch the video of the workshop and meet with ELLA attorney separately. Gwen Richard, Laura Larkin, and Karen Kern led a discussion about competitive grants in the Decentralized Arts Fund (DAF) Program. They brought two examples of successful grants from DAF. One was a very large organization and the other was an immigrant organization. Gene Meneray with the Arts Council of New Orleans Arts Incubator shared his webinar, To Be or Not to Be 501c3 and answered questions. Karen Kern gave an overview of grants compliance including final reports and fiscal requirements involved in receiving a grant. Then, Karen, Laura Larkin and Gwen Richard answered questions. The Arts Council of New Orlean's Decentralized Arts Funding Compliance Handbook is online. The final session was a panel discussion facilitated by Kelly Pepper, the Organizational Services director of the Louisiana Division of the Arts. Gene Meneray with Arts Incubator, Ashlye Keaton, an attorney with ELLA (Entertainment Law Legal Assistance), Max Niedzwiecki with Daylight Consulting Group, and M. K. Wegman with National Performance Network discussed organizational management issues including: board management, size, selection, rotation.
Maida Owens closed the workshop with a reminder that the next workshop will be Saturday, November 13 in Baton Rouge. The groups can submit their marketing and fundraising materials in advance to have the evaluated by the workshop leaders.
Workshop #3: Marketing and Fundraising, Part 1 On Saturday, November 13, 2010, the third Open Doors Mentoring Workshop was held at the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge for an intensive workshop on marketing and fundraising. First the three group gave updates on their projects. ACLA reported that their festival was a success. The grant enabled them to add visual arts to the Latin music festival. Adelante reported that their choir was practicing for their performance at La Purisima on December 7. Yang Guang reported that they will have the next Chinese Culture Night in April, 2011. Richard Read then presented an introduction to arts marketing. He is the marketing director of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and teaches arts administration at the University of New Orleans. Following lunch, Kathleen Sarsfield provided an introduction to fundraising and volunteer management. She was formerly the development director for the YMCA in Baton Rouge and the Community Services director at United Way in Baton Rouge. Workshop #4: Marketing and Fundraising, Part 2 On Saturday, January 15, 2011, the fourth Open Doors Mentoring Workshop was held at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. After the last workshop, it was evident that both Richard Read and Kathleen Sarsfield had much more to offer, so the fourth and final workshop was part two of marketing and fundraising. In the morning Richard Read had the groups each develop a marketing plan. The first exercise was to state what they were selling and who their audience is and then state their strengths and weaknesses. They then identified the five primary media outlets that they wanted to target and develop a strategy for their PR (free) and advertizing (paid). Following lunch Kathleen Sarsfield continued with fundraising and had them develop a case for giving or case statement. They worked on a list of prospective donors and determined who would approach them and how. This involved listing three things that they needed other than money. They very quickly came up with many more including volunteers, space, training in fundraising, dry cleaning support (for costumes), more talent (artists), office, staff, more exposure, more board member participation, political support, public recognition, rehearsal space with mirrors, costumes, storage space, professional training in art form, transportation to out of town training. They then considered different types of fundraising events. This has been a very successful first year pilot of the Open Doors Mentoring Program. Each group will be invited to participate in the second year of workshops, too.
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