6/7 Meeting Notes
Operations and Research
We first worked on hands-on research and data entry, followed by a discussion on how to streamline our workflow for future volunteer training.
Hands-On Research
Since taking over The Visualist we have been doing research by making a list of venues, creating event lists and entering the into the site. Our meeting is to go over the process so we can assess how we need to adjust it for multiple users.
We are working on making our events list more usable
We are putting our venue list into this spreadsheet for easier sorting and better organization (the event list from our list of venues, plus information we find through email, Instagram, and in the wild. We want to get back to checking venues 1–2 times a week, looking at their sites and adding direct links to events on our list.)
We are also working on reformatting our master event list
The master event list is now here as the second tab of the venue list. It is here.
Style Sheet
We also have formatting guidelines on our style sheet, with everything you need to know about how we add events and tags (we decided to remove the community area tag because, in the new site design, there are parameters that can be coded in to automatically do this.)
During our time as a team, we worked to add venues to the venue list and events to the event list and then to upload them to our site.
The process we want to refine is as follows:
Volunteers can use the venue list to capture events, putting them into the spreadsheet (note there should always be a double-check that events within 1–2 weeks of the research are not already in the site).
Once this research is done, the spreadsheet can be sorted to show the closest event first
Events can be put directly into our site via https://thevisualist.org/submit/
We Need a System for Regular Research
We honed our system some, and now need to consider how to get people trained and using it.
Homework: work on populating the venue list, researching events, and adding events to our site
How Might We Do Regular Volunteer Calls and Stay Connected?
We recognize that this work can be interesting, but it can also feel a bit like an administrative slog. We think a weekly meetup for people to do research and add events would be a good way to keep it feeling fresh and connected. We can do this both in person at spaces and online.
We need to practice this process so we can accurately describe it for people working on the site. Eventually, we may want to make more training materials and videos explaining how to do this work.
Marketing the Site to More People (this is from the 5/17 meeting and is being passed along to the next meeting)
We need a way to market the site to folks who may not know about it. We would like to create a double-sided flyer: one side focused on finding events and the other on submitting events.
Greg is going to draft some text for this, and Trejon will help design it once we all feel the text is working.
Next Meeting
June 28, 10:00–11 AM Online
We will be working on streamlining the process and how to start expanding the process to include more people, along with identifying what kind of training materials we need.
Homework
Finish putting our venue list into this spreadsheet and sort it.
Work on adding events to the event list here(2nd tab). and entering events into The Visualist
Fundraising
Grants Update
We applied for DCASE. However, that is not a guarantee, and the city explicitly states that this should not be considered a long-term reliable source of funding in order to leave room for other organizations. So while we are hopeful, we are very clear that this grant will not help with long-term stability.
We did not apply for the project grant for DCASE. While we have a great project focused on stabilizing and revamping the website, we would not be a good fit because the expenses are likely to be more than one-quarter of our budget (which is a stipulation of the grant).
We focused mostly on discussing a fundraiser at this meeting.
The bake sale still feels like a good idea. Providing food is both welcoming and caring. We still want to be careful not to raise funds on the backs of artists by asking for free labor or work, and instead design something more equitable that supports participating spaces. We would also like to see more savory items included.
We are thinking of November for timing and will hopefully pick a date at the next meeting.
Possible Venues
The Color Club
Kimball Art Center
Walls Turned Sideways
Others?
Marketing and About Us (this is from the 5/17 meeting and we have move this discussion to the next meeting)
It is clear we are not communicating about ourselves as effectively as we need to, and that our current passive donation methods are not working because they are buried at the bottom of the newsletter or About page.
We need a strong, clear pitch for why we are important and what we do. We are opening a document that has a mishmash of language describing the organization. Vesna will create a draft for the next meeting. We are also sharing previous grant applications so everyone can see how we have been describing the organization.
What we need (notes from 5/17 meeting)
We need:
$4,000–$5,000 per year for insurance, hosting, and site security.
To pay a part-time person for research is $13,000.
To add a full-time person is $62,000 (not including payroll tax).
The dream budget would be about $100-120k per year
Currently we are bringing in about $3,000–$4,000 per year.
As we came out of the pandemic, we were able to stabilize things briefly. A funder provided a $10,000 grant, and through contracted work on the Living Wage project, we brought in an additional $13,000. This allowed us to hire a part-time researcher, covering about 10 hours of work per week (approximately $13,000 annually), which meaningfully shifted the ongoing research workload away from unpaid board members.
With this added capacity, we were able to complete the Living Wage project and launch our weekly newsletter. For a short period, we had an operating budget of around $25,000 per year.
However, that period was temporary. That funder only supported us for two years before shifting away from arts organizations—a loss that has affected many groups, not just ours. At the same time, the Living Wage project concluded, and with it, the funding that supported our researcher. After three years, we’ve returned to an unpaid board member being responsible for ongoing operations.
Currently, there’s enough funding to keep the site operational, with an annual budget of $4,000, but not enough to remunerate anyone working on it.
Next meeting
June 28 at 11 AM online
Homework
Review the language we use to describe ourselves
Talk more about the shape, form and timing for the fundraiser
Web Development
Update: Meg and Michael will meet with Angela and Brendan from Made with Best Practice to see if there is a possible partnership there.
We moved some of this conversation to June 28, when Manny and Joelle are able to join.
Hosting Research
We tabled the hosting research until Manny is able to join us and distributed some previous documents we had created about what could be included in a new site, along with our style sheet and a grant application we wrote about developing a new website. (It was rejected, but there is some useful information in it.)
Joelle will attempt to create wireframes and a map of our current site.
Next meeting
June 28 at 12PM online
Homework:
Review the information handed out
Meg and Mike will update information on what we think is currently missing
Meg will try to get the entire back up downloaded (it is 80 gigs and takes a while)
