Community Art Support

Great River Chorale is committed to providing the central Minnesota community with choral experiences of the highest artistic quality. It seeks to increase its audience base, to strengthen its board and organizational structures, to improve and launch a fund-raising initiative, and to continue growing artistically. An award of Community Arts Support funds from the Central Minnesota Arts Board would help Great River Chorale achieve the following specific, measurable outcomes in the 2014-15 concert season: participation in two performances of choral-orchestral music as the principal choral partner of the Saint Cloud Symphony Orchestra; a collaborative holiday concert with two area youth choirs and guest instrumentalists; a collaborative concert with members of a regional dance company in a spring concert; presentation of an outreach concert for members of a central Minnesota community that may not otherwise have access to Great River Chorale's regular season programming; a fall 2014 professional recording and CD production project to promote awareness of Great River Chorale through radio airplay and sales to the public; increased and improved member and community participation in fundraising efforts; heightened public awareness of Great River Chorale through improved use of social, for profit, and public media outlets; implementation of an email marketing service to create a newsletter and to improve communications with members, former members, patrons, donors, advertisers, and supporters; to purchase a data maintenance software program; to recruit skilled singers and attract audiences from central Minnesota through continued programming of high quality music of varying styles and genres from different eras and cultures, and by providing a satisfying artistic experience of the highest caliber.We will evaluate the broad community success of Great River Chorale’s two public concert productions for the coming season by measuring the following: income generated from multiple sources (tickets sales, concert sponsorship, grant awards, program advertisements sales, Great River Chorale holiday albums sales); media coverage from multiple sources (articles, interviews and radio airplay); and verbal and written feedback from our patrons and collaborative participants. Individual revenue areas will be reviewed and compared to data from the previous three seasons to determine if there was an increase in ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, program ad sales, and holiday album sales, and thus an increase in community engagement. A similar comparison will evaluate whether media coverage is increasing, thereby increasing recognition and enhancing the ensemble’s reputation. Great River Chorale will continue to explore and refine data capturing methods in order to increase measurable data collected from our patrons, members, donors, collaborative partners and the larger community. This will include physical surveys, electronic surveys, personal interviews, and direct requests through e-newsletters and the Great River Chorale website. As we move forward in our plans for growth, we will review all available data periodically in order to make informed decisions for our future. In addition, Great River Chorale will continue to review constructive, qualitative feedback from our patrons and artistic collaborators in order to provide a narrative for our data that demonstrates the merit of our programming in terms of quality of musical performance. The proposed professional recording project and CD production is intended to increase revenue through sales to the public and recognition through track selection for radio airplay. Analysis of CD sale revenue and media coverage will measure the success of this endeavor. The success of Great River Chorale’s additional fund raising efforts will be measured through increased member participation in fundraising campaigns, an increase in individual, corporate and member donations, increased advertising sales, and an increase in donations on Minnesota’s Give to the Max Day 2014. Efforts to improve communications with our community will be measured through analytics provided by an email marketing service, social networks, and public media outlets where applicable. The purchase of a software program designed for nonprofit organizations will provide improvement in data management. Success will be measured in time saved by a significant simplification of processes for data projects (freeing up more time for other goals) and a decrease in returned mail.