Two-Year Operating Support Grant

Our goals are: - to receive operating support for rent so we can grow the Nordic Center into a more fiscally thriving and self-sustaining organization with an expanded ability to contribute to community economic development by retaining more artists and teachers; - to be able to reach out to more community members of all ages to offer arts and cultural experiences to people of all economic backgrounds. Measurable outcomes include improving our ability to pay rent, increasing the number of artists involved in our planning and programming, expanding our newsletter mailing list, increasing the number of people who participate Nordic Center activities, generating more income from contributions received from donation solicitation letters inserted into our newsletters, and diversifying our constituency -- especially by involving more young families and their children in Nordic Center programming. Our evaluation plan includes the following methods to measure outcomes: - adding operational support funding to the rent funds available in our annual budget during the grant period. - gauging economic development resulting from receiving operational support to pay rent by reporting the additional number of artists that become directly and indirectly involved in Nordic Center offerings as a result of additional funds available. - growing our mailing list from 600 to 1200 by the end of the grant period, and reporting the number of community members served at Nordic Center offerings as a result of that growth. - tallying the increase of contributions received from donation solicitation inserts mailed out with our publications. We project the numbers will grow from $2000 per year to twice that sum by the end of the two-year grant period. - compiling demographic information from our constituency using evaluation forms and registration forms. These forms will comprise one measurement tool that will enable us to document whether we reach our goal of 50% of our constituents being under 50 years of age.