Community Arts Support Grant
ACHF Arts Access
Quality of performance, our foremost goal, will be evident in the live and recorded concert sounds. Board members and orchestra musicians will give verbal feedback on their reactions to such quality. For our on-going operations, we put grant funds to work with 15 hours per week of pay for our General Manager to keep the many details of rehearsal and performance progressing. Administrative expenses such as insurance, auditing, and licenses will benefit. Improving the means to our performance goal will be evident with (1) increased concert attendance, (2) scrutiny through regular, measurable evaluative instruments, (3) higher contract wages for our high-performing artists, and (4) managing dedicated volunteers to edit and expand a photo-rich website, five on-line newsletters with creative graphics and concert-relevant articles, active use of Facebook with tie-ins to other arts organizations' sites on facebook, and rehearsals for the Buffalo Community Orchestra's newly-regenerated Trillium ensembles to perform at frequent local venues and made Buffalo Community Orchestra more visible.For key objectives to reach our primary goal of ever-better concert quality, (1) audience attendance will be measured by ticket sales, concert by concert, and compared to average sales figures over the past 8 years), (2) quantitative instruments designed for gaining audience, orchestra, and board responses to evaluative questions with ordinal measures and written comments, (3) an annual budget which can accommodate a $500 dollar increase for our conductor and $25 increments for section leaders, and (4) a 25% increase in visitors to our website, with more links to Facebook, a 15% addition to our 200 on-line newsletter subscribers, and at least 6 performances by Buffalo Community Orchestra ensembles at civic functions and local business venues.
Our primary artistic goal of highly creative, well-prepared concerts which draw increased audiences, was measured by (1) audience attendance (quantified by ticket sale revenues: 39% higher than previous 7 years); and (2) quantitative instruments, including some ordinally-measured questions plus comments, to survey separately audience, orchestra, and board members: all surveys showed high satisfaction numbers rating musicians’ skill and concert performance. Organizational goals, emphasizing expanded and effective operations, to be achieved by (1) retaining the paid General Manager, (2) covering increased administrative expense for auditing, insurance and licensing, (3) pay increases for conductor (added $500 to yearly salary) and section leaders (added $25 per service), and (4) attracting 2 Buffalo Community Orchestra unpaid volunteers to boost publicity and community outreach through Facebook and the Buffalo Community Orchestra website. Concert promotion through Facebook increased, the on-line newsletter subscribers rose to more than 150 subscribers, and organizing and rehearsing Buffalo Community Orchestra string and brass ensembles reached new listeners at 6 civic functions and local business venues.
Other, local or private