Donna Wilson and I last summer at Stories at the River's EdgeToday was the day: today the review panel for the Ohio River Border Initiative (ORBI) grants met to review applications for the 08-09 grant cycle.
Donna Wilson attended (she and I work on this event together).
At the end of the day-we got our grant!
What's the event? Stories at the River's Edge is a series of storytelling performances on both sides of the Ohio River in Ohio and West Virginia. Last year we focused on two counties, Meigs County OH and Mason County WV. Both are communities that lack arts events. We had great audiences (averaging 50-150 per event) last year and were encouraged enough to expand to another county this year.
What helped us get the grant:
- We told a story.
- We didn't use too many words.
- We held the interest of the review panel (heck, we're storytellers!).
- We provided anecdotes (like the handicapped group coming in buses).
- We had evaluation forms from attendees.
- We were clear about what we wanted to do, and why.
- Our funding request was reasonable.
So we're off and running for another year. Our plan is to expand each year, one county at a time, one day at a time.
Last year we did four one-day events during July. This year it will be two one-day events a week for the month of July.
Next year, who knows?
Congratulations! What a wonderful gift of story you will be bringing to so many people!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mary. Donna is the powerhouse behind this. I can write so I write the grant and we work together on the planning. But Donna does so much--contacting sponsors (she's gotten several for us), scheduling performers, making arrangements with the venues, publicity, etc. We build in some funds to pay for these administrative things, but of course it doesn't nearly cover the time she invests.
ReplyDeleteWe hope to expand again next year and add another county and 2-4 more performances to the schedule, but first we'll see how this year goes.