Communications
Organization:
119 Gallery VISTA Name:
Mira Allen
Program Start:
7/2008
Program End:
7/2009
Project Description:
119 Gallery seeks an individual to lead the expansion and development of the organization’s marketing, outreach and community building activities so we can reach and serve a larger population. Utilizing multiple communication venues, we will develop a solid strategic communications plan to inform our community members of offerings and engage them in programming. The Gallery’s robust programs of events, education, and exhibits draw a steady crowd of artists, community members, and young people. It has a number of systems (both operational and technical) in place to handle the strategic communications of the organization, but they are fragmented and lack focus. The CTC VISTA member would design and create a cohesive system that will more effectively leverage the organizations skills and capacities to engage and educate our community members.
· Assess organization’s current outreach, marketing and communication activities with strategic communications in mind
· Assess organization’s current communication infrastructure (web, email, social networks, print, mail, press)
· Gather member input into strategic communication needs
· Establish networking and outreach and shared communications with collaborating organizations.
· Research and recommend new processes for integrating and redesiging in a more efficient and strategic manner the organization’s outreach, marketing and communications activities with an eye toward greater community impact and involvement
· Design and implement this new strategic communications plan
· Create a set of evaluation metrics and benchmarks that will enable the organization to track is progress
· Train interns, volunteers and staff in the effective use of and maintainence of the new communications system
· Provide additional strategic input and staffing support for all gallery programmatic areas, including Identifying and meeting with community organizations that share our mission and constituency.
Project Outcome:
Mira has succeeded in organizing our overall marketing. She is working with a volunteer from the the Jericho Road Foundation to establish a comprhensive marketing plan. She is a member of the 199 Gallery Board’s Marketing Subcommittee. She maintains Facebook and Myspace pages, posting notices and invites as appropriate. She edits and emails a bimonthly newsletter using Constant Contact. She has participated in the design and development of several fund raising events including the Jazz Brunch, and Dinner & A Movie. She organized the annual membership renewal campaign, Show Us The Love. She has updated the gallery database. She assists in recruiting and managing volunteers.
The database was a mess, Mira fixed it! She created the newsletter from scratch and in addition has established a good working relationship with the local newspaper, the Lowell SUN.
Mira helped us with press release, created a social networking site which has over 500 fans, worked on our monthly newsletter and multiple fundraisers.
In addition, Mira joined several community projects, sent out a marketing survey to Gallery members, and, over Labor Day weekend, participated in the Bumpkin Island Artists Encampment over Labor Day Weekend. She also coordinated the Jazz Brunch, our annual fundraiser.
We did not get the completed manual for future training, but as a result of Mira’s work, we have much more visibility and are growing in terms of members and programming.
Impact Quote:
“Mira was devoted even outside the job, she harnessed many relationships for the gallery that otherwise would not have been here. As a result we got more people interested in our gallery and diverse programming.”
- Y Sok Woodward, supervisor