Western Mass. nonprofits receive economic recovery grantsDate: 1/25/2021 MASSACHUSETTS – The Mass Cultural Council (MCC,) in partnership with the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development, recently announced nearly $10 million in COVID-19 relief through the Cultural Organization Economic Recovery Grant Program. In total, 183 cultural nonprofit organizations throughout the commonwealth received $9,960,600 to support economic recovery from losses sustained during the pandemic.
Nonprofit cultural organizations from live theater to music programs, arts collectives to museums suffered a reported $484 million in lost revenue, according to the Mass Cultural Council in the announcement. Sixty-two percent of these organizations made the difficult decision to lay off or furlough employees or reduce their wages and/or hours – choices that impacted 30,616 cultural employees statewide.
Beginning in March 2020, approximately 898 cultural organizations responded to four MCC COVID economic impact surveys, which collectively identified more than $116 million needed for COVID-related capital improvements and non-capital recovery necessary to reopen and re-engage the public.
The Cultural Organization Economic Recovery Grant Program was extremely competitive. A total of 424 applications were received over three weeks, requesting $30.2 million in assistance. Grant awards ranged from $1,000 to a maximum of $100,000.
Western Massachusetts organizations from Springfield to the hilltowns were among those that received much needed grants from this program, which recognized both the great value of these organizations and the economic loss suffered by them due to the COVID-19 public health crisis.
Chester Theatre Company
The Chester Theatre Company received a grant of $94,000. Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer said the company had to cancel its entire four-show season in 2020, and this grant will allow them to continue in 2021.
“We lost all of our earned income for the year – vanished. We had some donations, but it was literally zero. After such a difficult year, this remarkable grant will help us move forward into 2021 as we make plans to return to live performance,” Kramer said.
The 2021 season will take place outdoors under a tent on the grounds of the Hancock Shaker Village, under the name Chester@Hancock. Kramer said this is a temporary change in location for the safety of audiences, performers, staff and crew due to restrictions caused by COVID-19. “That’s going to come with a lot of new expenses, and is a lot of what this grant is going to make possible for us, to set up an outdoor stage and COVID safety protocols,” he said.
The season will consist of three productions, one each in June, July, and August, instead of the usual four. Shows and exact dates and times will be announced at chestertheatre.org.
Kramer said the Theatre will keep ties to Chester, its home for 30 years, and will continue to rent out the auditorium of the Chester Town Hall for the same amount this season to use as rehearsal space.
“We will return to the Town Hall Theatre in Chester in 2022,” Kramer said, adding, “We love being there, that’s part of being who we are.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Chester Theatre Company this summer,” said Jennifer Trainer Thompson, director of Hancock Shaker Village. “They’ve found a creative solution to a vexing challenge, and we welcome the opportunity to have outdoor live theater at the Village all summer long.”
“To be able to take on the challenge of this summer, this grant is what makes it possible – one of the times you feel lucky to live in a state that is actually doing stuff like this. This is also the largest grant that the Theatre has ever gotten. It could not have come at a better time,” Kramer said.
New England?Public Media
New England Public Media (NEPM), the recently rebranded merger between New England Public Radio and the public television station WGBY, received $100,000 from the grant program. Grants Manager Debbie Oppermann said it will be used to reimburse utility costs for the organization. The grant covers the electric bills for NEPM from March 10 through the end of 2020.
“We’ve had losses with COVID, but they haven’t affected us the way people think,” said Oppermann. The organization was able to pivot to online programming and the radio programming wasn’t directly impacted. Martin Miller, president of NEPM, said that the company was even able to provide more educational programming as schools shut down in the spring of 2020.
But behind the scenes, Oppermann said, revenue has taken a hit. A full 90 percent of revenue for NEPM comes from community support. She said that while some supporters are still donating to the stations, there are fewer charitable dollars, a smaller number of donors and lower corporate contributions as businesses have faced economic uncertainty.
Miller said that while the organization had to furlough its staff for a week and lay off one person, it completed the year with a balanced budget. This was accomplished, in part, with the help of funding from the first stimulus.
While Miller said that revenue in 2021 has begun strong, NEPM is working on obtaining more funding to keep public media going in its area. The organization is applying for a federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan. Oppermann is also seeking more grants, and has applied for a capital facilities grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council so the WGBY offices at 44 Hampden St. in Springfield can be updated to accommodate the staff of New England Public Radio. Another grant, from Nation Public Radio (NPR) Storylab, would provide funding for a Pan African community podcast that NEPM is developing for their new equity desk, which will tell stories from underheard voices.
Springfield Public Forum
The Springfield Public Forum is one of the country’s oldest Public Speaker Series. The Forum works to bring people together in Springfield to hear insights, perspectives and speeches from authors, artists, political figures, educators, scientists and more. The Springfield Public Forum is completely free and open to the public with no tickets required.
“We were established in 1935 coming out of the Great Depression for a need to provide information to the Greater Springfield community about what was happening in the region, across the country and, actually, across the world,” said Executive Director, Michelle Morash.
Before COVID-19, the Springfield Public Forum hosted their events at Springfield Symphony Hall. Examples of previous speakers include Ambassador Susan Rice, Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, Maya Angelou, Steve Wozniak, Senator Cory Booker and Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Given that The Springfield Public Forum is completely free to the public, they do everything that they can to keep their costs down. They have a virtual office and rely on individual donations and corporate sponsorships to help run the organization. Since the pandemic began, The Springfield Public Forum has hosted their events virtually.
“Luckily technology was available to us and we’ve been able to continue to bring speakers via Zoom,” said Morash.
The Springfield Public Forum applied for a COVID-19 relief grant for local nonprofits to help them stay afloat. The organization heard that they would be receiving the grant right before New Years.
“Since both individuals and companies were affected by the pandemic, this grant is going to be extremely helpful in helping us continue our operations now that we are continuing to provide programming,” said Morash.
The grant money will be used to help keep staff employed and continue to bring speakers to the Greater Springfield Community, according to Morash.
The Springfield Public Forum is now working on programming for both the Spring and Fall. They are expecting to continue virtual speakers in the Spring and hope to be back at Symphony Hall by the Fall. While on Zoom, viewers are still able to interact with speakers and ask questions. However, Morash said that nothing can compare to being in-person and bringing people of “all walks of life” together.
“We’re hoping to be back together. One of the great parts about the Springfield Public Forum is that there’s no financial barrier for anyone to attend our events, and you get a great mix of people from all across the community. It’s very special to be there as a community,” she said.
Community Music School of Springfield
The executive director of the Community Music School of Springfield, Eileen McCafferty, said in a statement to Reminder Publishing when the pandemic hit the area last year, in-person programming was suspended. However, a commitment was made “to continue to compensate our artists and staff as long as possible.” This, McCafferty said, is something they have been able to continue to do, employing a total of “60 teaching artists and eight staff.”
Throughout the pandemic,McCafferty said the school “lost both earned and contributed revenue due to COVID-19.” She said when instruction was switched to a virtual platform in March of 2020, “31.6 percent of our program income for lessons and ensembles, and 83.2 percent of Prelude Preschool of the Arts revenue was lost, reflecting a deficit in revenue in excess of $500,000 compared to the prior year.”
Additionally, the school was forced to cancel their annual Spring Gala fundraiser which would have taken place in April 2020. The fundraiser, McCafferty said, “raises $70,000 annually for financial aid and scholarships.” They were also forced to “suspend all short term space rental at CMSS for concerts and events.”
McCafferty said the school, which was awarded $100,000 through the relief grants, planned to use the funds to continue for payroll expenses they took on during the fall. “The entirety of the funds we received are to support our payroll expenses from fall 2020,” McCafferty said. She also expressed gratitude from “the Mass Cultural Council, EOHED, Gov. Baker and our legislators for making this grant funding possible.”
Springfield Museums
Director of Marketing and Communication for the Springfield Museums, Karen Fisk, told Reminder Publishing that the Museums closed in March 2020 “as part of the community effort to stem the spread of COVID-19.”
“Almost from the moment we closed, we started to plan for reopening. We ordered the materials we would need to help keep our staff and visitors as safe as possible - Plexiglass, signage, directional arrows, social distance markers, masks and so on,” she said. Fisk explained at the same time they initiated virtual experiences through the Museums’ website including video tours, downloadable activities and other immersive experiences with the Museums’ collections.
Fisk said while operating at 25 percent occupancy and offering free virtual programming “is the right thing to do,” the Museums “rely on admissions for much of our revenue.” She said, “Receiving aid from the Mass Cultural Council
Cultural Organization Economic Recovery Program is a tremendous program and will help us as we continue to move forward.”
“We are deeply grateful to the MCC for reaching out with aid in this very challenging year,” said Kay Simpson, president and CEO of the Springfield Museums. “The funds will help us keep our staff employed and our much-needed outreach strong even in the difficult days ahead. This funding will also help us sustain work with local Massachusetts artists and educators as we continue to offer our arts programing.”
MIFA
Executive Artistic Director of the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts Victory Theater (MIFA), Donald Sanders, said they have not hosted in-person programming since the pandemic first impacted the area last March. He said despite that, they have been “somewhat lucky.”
“What we had to do, we scheduled programming that are now coming up,” he said. Sanders explained that only recently would they finish the 2020 season due to the delays that were experienced. He said a recent production, El Puerto Rico, was “originally supposed to be in June of 2020.”
He called the logistics and rescheduling “a lot of creative choreography.” He said, “In some ways, we were lucky that we could maneuver the time and maneuver the time with the artists that were presenting, so it worked for them too,” he said. “It’s no substitute for live performance, for music and theater, but you can come pretty close and give people a fairly satisfying replacement.”
However, he said, as an arts facility a significant portion of their revenue comes from their box office earnings, which haven’t been the same since they closed their doors last year. “Even when you can do something exciting and persuasive, it’s harder to realize the same box office,” he said. Initially, Sanders said it was difficult to persuade the public to recognize the value and cost of a virtual performance.
“In this stage people are getting used to paying for something, for tickets when a performance is virtual,” he said. “It’s taken a while not only for organizations, but also for the public to recognize the need to be able to pay for some box office income.”
Sanders said the $21,000 MCC grant, “have gone a long way to pick up the difference, the slack” in the box office income they have lost since the pandemic began. Additionally, he said it “also helps us be able to pay more times, [and] the cost of artistic fees versus the expectation of box office income.”
“It made us able to continue with programming and adjust to virtual reality and difference in box office and fundraising in general,” he said.
He went on to express gratitude for both the commonwealth and the MCC “for really stepping in very quickly and recognizing the difficulties.” He said, “We should be very proud of our state’s expertise, savvy and recognition of bringing help to the not-for-profit community in the arts and other areas as well.”
Additionally, he said “this has been a wakeup call,” and ideally he’d like to see “our governments, both state and federal, look at really upgrading the entire support system for the non-for-profit community.”
|
