The deadline for Arts Activities Support, Round 2 grant applications is Monday, April 6, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. with an earliest project start date of June 16, 2015.  

All applications must be submitted using MRAC's online Grant Interface. The grant guidelines and Grant Interface are available on the Arts Activities Support grant program page. 

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Putting Out the Welcome Mat

Thursday, April 30, 2015, 9:00 a.m. to Noon 

Hosted by Leah Cooper

Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue S, Minneapolis, MN  55415 

Is your organization authentically engaging audiences? How do you measure that engagement? Do you ever look at your organization's audience and wonder, "who isn't here?" What is your organization's diversity of welcome vs. its depth of welcome? How does this affect who shows up and who returns? Do the organization's decision makers reflect the audiences? This workshop will mix panel expertise, peer-to-peer brainstorming, and interactive problem-solving to explore how we Put Out the Welcome Mat to engage the audiences we intend to serve.

Leah Cooper is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Theater Alliance, Co-Artistic Director of Wonderlust Productions, a freelance stage director, an arts administration consultant, and a co-founder and partner at MinnesotaPlaylist.com. She was also the Executive Director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival and served on the Minneapolis Arts Commission.

Creating a Volunteer Social Media Team 

Social media management can be a full-time job, but rarely can small arts groups afford that kind of staff time to really use the tools to engage donors, recruit program volunteers, or advertise a performance in channels where people spend their time. Creating a social media team which mixes staff, board and other volunteers can really extend a nonprofit's reach. The challenge then becomes managing all that effort in real time for measurable goals (often referred to as conversions in measurement tools like Google Analytics).

This session will dive deep into Hootsuite as one tool to manage scheduled posts, author roles, and monitoring channels for engagement. Ensuring consistent voice across authors and scheduling some posts for review will be discussed, as well as a brief overview of other platforms such as Tweetdeck and Buffer.  

Steve Boland is a nonprofit leader with expertise in building strong communities, creating effective financial and evaluation strategies, and using technology to further nonprofit fundraising and operational goals. Steve has over 20 years of nonprofit and public sector experience, including executive director positions at Saint Paul Neighborhood Network, Summit-University Planning Council, and Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation. He holds a Master of Nonprofit Management from Hamline University and serves on the Board of Directors for Outfront Minnesota. You can often find his leading-edge industry opinions in publications of Nonprofit Quarterly, Community Tech Knowledge, and the Minnesota Council on Foundations.

The Metropolitan Regional Arts Council develops a two-year plan to guide our work for each legislative biennium. Constituent input is very important to us as we do this planning.

A public meeting will be held regarding the contents of MRAC's proposed plan for the 2016-2017 biennium on Tuesday, April 21 at 4:30 p.m. at the MRAC office. Although you are welcome to just show up, we encourage you to let us know you are coming so that we can provide seating accordingly. To register, or to provide input on the plan, send an email to mrac@mrac.org, or call us at 651-645-0402. A draft of the Biennial Plan will be available for your information beginning Monday, April 20 at the MRAC office and on our website.

ADA Access Improvement Grants for Metro Arts Organizations are designed to help make arts programming, activities, and facilities more accessible to people with disabilities. The grants of up to 15,000 are offered for projects with significant or long-term potential to involve more people with disabilities as participants or patrons in arts programs.  

Soo Visual Arts Center, Interact Center for Visual & Performing Arts, and The Show, are the most recent recipients of an ADA Access Improvement Grant. With the addition of these three grants, VSA Minnesota has now awarded over 1 million in ADA Access Improvement Grants to 49 seven-county Twin Cities arts organizations. 

This program, administered by VSA Minnesota, is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

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Below are the remaining FY 2015 grant application deadlines. All applications must be submitted using MRAC's online Grant Interface. Unless otherwise noted, all applications must be submitted by 4:30 p.m. on the deadline date. "Submitted" means that the application has been received and time-stamped by the MRAC Grant Interface server.  

4/6/2015     Arts Activities Support, Round 2

4/13/2015   Arts Achievement Award

Weekly           Management Training Fund

Weekly           Emergency Accessibility

Monthly         Management Consulting Fund

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