Operating Support - Renewal

As we further our strategic goals in alignment with our values, we are expanding our staff and our capacity for operational and artist support. This has led to significant cost increases and we are working to expand our fundraising efforts to meet this need. We hope to be able to sustain our expansion in order to continue to offer programming at no cost to individual artists and move closer to our ultimate goal of providing all individual artists with a stipend and travel reimbursement for their time at the Center. To do this we must continue to build our relationships with both new and alumni artists as well as our local community and other arts organizations. Measurable outcomes will include having a wider donor base with new and varied sources of funding, more grants sought in 2024, a continued robust range of applicants for our programs, increased alumni engagement, and continued partnerships with other arts organizations in the local Ely community. In 2024 we will conduct a donor survey and track key statistics about funding sources. This will allow us to understand our donor retention rate, our number of new donors, and how engaged our donor community is. Meeting our fundraising goals in order to make our budget will be an opportunity both to measure our success as well as to reflect on which efforts are providing the best financial outcomes. Our staff tracks artist demographics and disciplines to ensure inclusive and diverse engagement, service, and representation. We also track our local audience to measure the success of our events and collaborations with other organizations. Finally, we survey participants in our programs and activities to determine how the artists' experience at the Center compared to their initial expectations, and to what extent their residency helped them reach their goals, contributed to their creative process, and impacted their career/artistic development.