Welcome to the Program Notes Series! This is the first in what I hope will become a regular series I’m calling ‘Program Notes’, wherein I talk with leaders in the arts and culture nonprofit world to discuss pressing issues, current events, and best practices. For the first edition of ‘Program Notes’, I spoke with Alek Peugh,…
One of the most common things I hear from clients and readers is that they struggle to get consistent engagement with their followers on social media. Many of them even have substantial numbers of followers, but for whatever reason, those followers aren’t liking, sharing, or commenting on any of the organization’s posts. It’s a pickle…
First and foremost, Happy 4th of July! I’m very aware that today is a holiday and you probably have limited time in between barbecues, dips in the pool, or lighting off fireworks to read this. Or you’re reading it sometime after the 4th, in which case: welcome back to work. So in honor of the holiday and…
Something I hear often from nonprofits that are newer to grant seeking or are maybe working on their own for the first time, without the benefit of a consultant or specialist staff member, is that they aren’t sure where to find good arts and culture grants. Never mind pulling together all the materials and actually…
Responsive marketing has been around for a while now, but if you’ve never heard that term before, don’t feel bad. It’s not something that gets talked about a lot in the nonprofit sector. Which is a shame, because it could really boost engagement with nonprofit patrons and donors and who doesn’t need a little more…
Usually when you hear the terms “equity” and “inclusion” used in the same sentence as “grant writing” it means you’re talking about writing grants which will fund programming to address imbalances and inequities in various facets of society. Or you’re writing grants to fund nonprofits whose missions directly address these things. (Or maybe you’re just…
On March 27th I had the pleasure of attending the 2019 ReWrite Conference in Lexington, Kentucky. The conference was presented by KY GPA (Grant Professionals Association) and the Kentucky Nonprofit Network and it was absolutely fabulous! For those of you who were unable to attend, I’ve put together some of my favorite takeaways from the…
In the minds of grant makers, impact is king. It’s what they want to see most in your proposals and ultimately in your outcomes. But here comes some tough love: arts organizations are not always great at creating evaluation strategies for their programming that allow them to adequately demonstrate impact. I touched on…
The past few years have seen a steady rise in the effectiveness of video as a way to engage with audiences. Nonprofit audiences are no different, so if your organization has yet to get on the video train, it’s time. In this blog article I want to explore a few easy ways you can…
When you’re focused on writing grant proposals and trying to secure awards for your nonprofit, it can be really easy to zero in solely on your proposal. You worry about how well it’s written, whether or not your budget is easy to read and understand, if you forgot any typos, or if you’ve crafted solid…