Operating Support Grant

EWF?s evaluation committee, under Linda Ganister?s leadership, developed an evaluation plan that was first implemented for the 2019 festival. These are the questions the plan seeks to answer: To what extent does the Ely Winter Festival strengthen the Ely community? How do the arts components affect the artists? To what extent do the arts components affect the audience? The evaluation plan tracks the number of professional sculptures and carvers and a variety of statistics from the Symposium and other festival events. It also includes surveys of snow carvers, Ely ArtWalk participants, and participating businesses. The evaluation results are used by the board in planning the next festival. Evaluation has generally been the reviewed at the board meeting following the close of the festival. Going forward, we will schedule a summer meeting devoted solely to using the evaluation results to devise a strategy for making changes to the next festival. If we define our constituents as the community of Ely and the audience, then two of the three evaluation questions address this look outward. To assess how the EWF strengthens the Ely community, we look at three things: 1) Does the EWF offer a broad array of well-attended events? 2) Are sponsorships from local businesses steady or increasing, in number and amount? 3) Does the event benefit the Ely business community? To answer the first question, we maintain a master list of all festival events, and collect attendance information (if available). We consider the number of events as well as attendance or participation. We also ask event organizers for comments on how successful the events were, in their view. We also conduct an audience survey in the park that seeks public input on a variety of festival events. To answer the second question, we track sponsorships ? both number and dollar amount - from the business community. To answer the third question, we do face-to-face interviews with area businesses and ask questions about their perceptions of the impact of the festival on their business revenues, and on the revenues of Ely businesses in general. This survey was new in 2020. The growth in business sponsorship over the last five years attests to the public support for the festival within the city of Ely. For the 2015 festival, EWF had 37 local business sponsors who donated $8,650. By 2020, that had grown to 78 local business sponsors that donated $13,350. The advertising support donated by the Ely Chamber of Commerce (valued at $500) further attests to business support for the festival. Ongoing in-kind services of the City of Ely valued at $10,000 attest to the support of city leaders for our event. The explosion in recent years of the number of festival events demonstrates the degree of public engagement with the festival. In 2008, 30 distinct events were hosted by 20 different organizations. By 2020, the festival had grown to 68 distinct events hosted by 22 different organizations. We have struggled over the years to estimate the number of people who view the snow sculptures, walk the streets to see art in store windows, or otherwise participate in the festival as spectators. It will likely always remain difficult or impossible to enumerate total festival participation. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is widely known as a Minnesota treasure. The EWF provides a public service to the state of Minnesota by making this area a winter tourism destination, and introducing winter tourists from across the country to the natural beauty of this area. EWF is contributing to Ely?s reputation as an arts community. Ely?s economy was once dominated by three industries ? mining, lumber, and tourism. The Pioneer Mine closed in 1967, one year after passage of the Wilderness Act forced the closure of dozens of resorts in what was now the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This devastated the lumber industry and changed forever the nature of Ely tourism. It has taken many years, but Ely has r