Arts Marketing Survey

The Cultural Alliance is undertaking a HUGE project to benefit the York Community and its cultural assests. Surale Phillips, one of the leading cultural research consultants in the country, will conduct a collaborative audience development initiative beginning September, 2007. She will help us answer these questions, and more:

· How many households in the York County region are interested in arts and cultural events and programs?
· How often do they participate in the arts and where do they go?
· How broad is our market for York County arts and culture?
· How many of the truly interested households is your organization reaching?
· How many are we reaching together as members of the Cultural Alliance?
· What are the characteristics of our audiences and the potential audiences we don’t yet know?


Surale is an inredible researcher who has been working with cultural communities for more than 15 years and came highly recommended. In addition to Cultural Alliance members, other community partners include York College and Penn State Performing Arts Center.

We hope you will stay posted as we use this blog to relay information about the survey.

Board to Boards Meeting

The Cultural Alliance's board to boards meeting will be held June 20 at the Strand. It will be so exciting because, for the first time, we have engaged a nationally known expert to help guide our discussions. Mark Brewer, CEO of the Community Foundation of Central Florida, and keynote speaker at the upcoming Americans for the Arts Convention, will present his views on philanthropy and where its headed ****hint - while charitable giving is reaching record levels, giving to the arts has DECREASED.

We need to find out what we can do, the Alliance and its members, to reverse that trend.Mark will help us figure out how we can do that - not just as a stop gap measure, but 10 or 20 years in the future. He will help us fly at 50,000 feet!

If you are a board member of one of our nine members, or an interested person, please mark your calendar now and take advantage of this fabulous opportunity. We'll provide more details as they become available. AND - we're eager for your ideas and feedback both before and after Mark's presentation. I am looking forward to hearing from you!

The power of the Arts...the power of the media

The Cultural Alliance was fortunate to receive promotion help from Cumulus Radio during this year's campaign - ads that ran every day talking about the importance of the arts to the York community. We appreciated the opportunity to showcase the Alliance and its nine member agencies to the more than 300,000 people who listen to WARM 103, WSBA, and 96.1. What we didn't realize was the power of the media!!!!

After hearing about our members and what they do for the York Community, Hawk Gunning Club Treasurer, Daryl Ryan, called the Cultural Alliance to see if the Hawk Gunning Club could particpate in the campaign and help nine of the finest arts, history, and cultural organizations in York.

Of course, we were delighted to accept their check for $3000! This was a new gift - and it was made possible through Cumulus Radio and their ability to reach so many people. The power of the media and the power of the Arts - together they support the Cultural Alliance - the Art and Soul of York.

the power of the Arts...

Yesterday was a good one at the Alliance - we are now 9% ahead of last year in cash - though we are still behind in the number of calls booked. And our total - cash and in-kind - is 3/4 of the way to $1 million dollars. Looking at some numbers, we are forcasting success. But we can't do it without you finishing your calls...so please, let us know what you need to finish up. We are here to help.

We had a great member meeting this morning - lots of sharing of information and mentoring going on. One of the suggestions was to create a blog - and MAW took the challenge so here we are! We hope you will visit our blog often to get updates on the campaign and the goings on of the Alliance.

Welcome!