Operating Support Grant
Operating Support Grant
We'll use the funds for payroll and for advertising to move our programs and projects forward.
Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Emily Swanson: arts administrator at Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community; Daniel Oyinloye: musician, videographer; Kris Nelson: artist, teacher; Roxann Berglund: musician; Bill Payne: Professor of Theater at the University of Minnesota-Duluth
Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Daniel Oyinloye: musician, videographer; Kris Nelson: artist, teacher; Bill Payne: Professor of Theater at the University of Minnesota-Duluth
ACHF Arts Access
A combination of sources including paper surveys, ticket sales, attendance and program fees, social media comments and outside data sources help shape future directions at the Lyric. Surveys are used to help determine where we advertise, how we select play and performance selections. Demographic data on the survey is compared to census data to get an idea of who we haven?t served and spur us to connect with other artists and arts organization to find ways to make those connections. Colleen Dillenscheider?s data analysis a great resource to help plan for reopening and anticipating future audiences. https://www.colleendilen.com/2020/06/01/how-covid-19-civil-unrest-is-im…. Chats with artists provide valuable information on ways to meet their needs. CreateMN has been used to both inform area civic and business entities of the possibilities for economic development and to help us project future economic impact of the Lyric. The Lyric began including paper surveys in performance playbills in 2018 to learn more about our demographics, live performance attendance trends and what media sources were effective. This has helped direct our marketing dollars, learn what audiences we are attracting and who we need to direct future program efforts toward. Class and workshop evaluations are used to inform us of the course and instructor?s success in meeting participant expectations which helps us direct future education selections and provides the instructor with critical feedback. The Lyric Art Colony is an informal forum of artists leading us to begin more formal gatherings of artists with board members and the ED to understand what needs are unmet. Northern Stage Works meets after every performance to gather feedback, assess the quality of their production and review attendance in order to understand how they intersected with their audience and how they can use the information they gathered to inform future program selections. The 2018 Quad Cities cohort of the Blandin Leadership training worked through several issues of need on our community. The lack of out-of-school arts opportunities for youth was identified and a focus group formed to find a way to correct that collecting information from local parents to determine needs that a new youth arts program could correct. This information has directed the development of a Youth Arts Program Director and inform directions for creating new programs. When our organization formed in 1998 the Quad Cities and eastern Iron Range were virtually an arts desert outside of in-school programs. Individual artists were separate and felt alone. As public schools changed their focus from arts and humanities to ?teach to the tests? students lost access to learning how the arts could enrich their lives. Throughout the past 22 years, the Lyric has begun to fill that gap in meaningful ways through a dedicated art gallery, theater programs for children and adults, educational and cultural opportunities that are free or low cost and open to the public without restrictions, and now developing visual, music and literary arts programs for youth. The Lyric encourages visual arts participation through an open call for artists process plus open exhibits in May, August and December each year. We promote the gallery as ?free and open to the public? to encourage anyone and everyone to walk through our door and discover works of art by local artists that they can relate to or be challenged by. We have the only community theater and children?s theater companies and the only venue for music performance other than bars in a 60 mile radius that provides regular performances. In a nutshell, the Lyric is essentially a ?Poster Child? for the intent of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund by providing arts, arts education and arts access, and preserving a piece of Minnesota's history and cultural heritage through renovation of the historic Lyric Theater building.
Under his leadership of our new Executive Director, our programs have received the shot in the arm necessary to reengage our community and artists, many of whom had become uninvolved with the Lyric over the years. A major accomplishment was to reinvigorate our Board of Directors. Prior, about half of the members of our board were disengaged and did not contribute to our mission. Since, we have recruited four strong new members who have made a positive difference. Our goal is to keep this momentum moving forward with a fully-functional, nine person board by the end of the year. We have also reconnected with area non-profits, service organizations and businesses who's relationships with the Lyric had fizzled out or become nonexistent. Reforming and improving these relationships is crucial to our long-term success. Finally, a complete over hall and rebrand of our programing (for all ages) has been implemented to increase the involvement of our community and number of participants.