In between places

I can't believe my service here is more than half over. I love this job. I wish I could spend another year working here. There are some projects here I've started, that I know will take longer than my term of service to finish. Right now, I'm working on an NEA grant, and we won't even see that money, if we win, until next January.

I've also been here long enough to watch the organization grow and develop. I've also spent some time thinking about what would need to be done in order to help build a stronger base such as strategic planning, developing future staff positions (ie write out job descriptions, think about necessary income to support more full time administrative staff, and so many more ideas.)

I also really like the environment. We try to work collectively here to create a program we can all support. This means I usually end up doing stuff outside of my job description, but we all do it together, so I don't mind. Right before Christmas, we had a baby grand piano donated. My job, with the ED and one of my housemates was to become "piano movers." We moved it out of a tiny house and into our performance space. When I got back from the holiday break, I photographed it for our seasonal mailing.

I'm working on one proposal now, to create a winterized community room upstairs that can function as a classroom space. I'm also working on a few other proposals and adding the old membership database slowly to the new one. Our youth media program is growing and getting a space where they can meet regularly would really help the program and organization's capacity.

We haven't had much luck getting grants this year otherwise. I know it is a tough year all around to find funding. I get a little frustrated every time we get a rejection letter, but I know it has a lot to do with the economy and not us necessarily. We keep getting emails that say the foundation is going through a "re-organizing process" and they aren't able to let us apply right now.

I'm going to keep plugging away though. We did make a t-shirt order and I'm going to work on a planned giving campaign. I also drafted an annual report and we used the text in our next season's brochure. There are other ways to raise money and now seems like a good time for out of the box thinking.

Our next season looks like it is going to be amazing. The Yes Men! are coming to to a presentation on culture jamming and there work. The filmmaker Patricio Guzman is coming to show his new film "Nostalgia for the Light," David Zirin is coming, and so many other cool folks.

Hope you all are well!