Do Arts Groups Need Educational Services Similar to Chamber of Commerce Offerings?
ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB
Every week here in NYC, I take a call from an organization about building their organizational capacity, and I typically guide them to the United Way or to the Chamber of Commerce. Recently though a caller challenged my referral: "The needs of our small arts group are different from social service groups and small businesses." How should Foundations go about gathering information to determine the types training programs we should provide? This is a critically important question during a time when surveys show deep dissatisfaction with grant makers.
One response is to gather more information using crowdsourcing as demonstrated by Artsfwd, a community of arts leaders dedicated to doing things differently. Likewise, make an assessment of your internal capacity for providing the training: staff and board members before looking to outside experts. Lastly, I recommend developing your own curriculum before inviting anyone to teach and to survey your grantees on those training outcomes. WikiHow offers a video with some strategies for developing such a curriculum. When to begin? Why not begin right now.
By TAHLIB
Every week here in NYC, I take a call from an organization about building their organizational capacity, and I typically guide them to the United Way or to the Chamber of Commerce. Recently though a caller challenged my referral: "The needs of our small arts group are different from social service groups and small businesses." How should Foundations go about gathering information to determine the types training programs we should provide? This is a critically important question during a time when surveys show deep dissatisfaction with grant makers.
One response is to gather more information using crowdsourcing as demonstrated by Artsfwd, a community of arts leaders dedicated to doing things differently. Likewise, make an assessment of your internal capacity for providing the training: staff and board members before looking to outside experts. Lastly, I recommend developing your own curriculum before inviting anyone to teach and to survey your grantees on those training outcomes. WikiHow offers a video with some strategies for developing such a curriculum. When to begin? Why not begin right now.
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