Earth Arts NW Program Report 2009-excerpt

Organization Name:
Earth and Spirit Council, Earth Arts NW
City & State:
Describe your creative piece – what is it and what has it been used for, and why is it innovative?
Our annual program report is created to communicate basic facts, accomplishments and challenges encountered during our program year. It is shared with donors, board and community members to help them understand the impact their gifts of support have on the children we serve. Although we use text to convey information, each page is designed to communicate its content visually - like a picture book. Images of the learning process, children's artwork and curriculum pieces (many created within the Adobe Suite) are formatted in a way that we hope "tells the story" of Earth Arts in a playful and meaningful way.
What issue or problem were you working to address with this piece?
2009 was a very challenging fiscal year. Our financial resources were greatly reduced and our program focus changed accordingly. We provided more residencies on a fee basis and were not able to provide as many full residencies to schools in low income areas. But we adapted our residency formats and added new ones so that we would be able to fill as many requests for reduced-fee and subsidized residencies as possible. End pages of this report (not included) contain detailed plans for funding, outreach and program sustainability. Our intent was to assure invested partners that we met our goals for the year, even under challenging circumstances, AND to invite them into a world where their continued donations can do so much good.
How has your submission successfully impacted your organization’s ability to solve this issue/problem?
Through sharing this and other program materials we have added four new board members in the past several months. We include a digital copy of the report with each funding request and we're about half-way to meeting our funding goals for this year, with a number of grant requests pending. With the help of new board members we're also sharing the program report (as projected images) during intimate mini-fundraisers within the community. Donor and volunteer interest is definitely on the rise!
Creative Submission - Files