blueprints

208 | toolkit: an idea, a pencil, and paper
before you ask them to spend valuable time with you. They will want the
answers to all the questions we have posed: Why this? Why here? Why now?
Why, for heaven’s sake, me? What resources do I have?
Build Partnerships With Organizations
Organizations often have resources individuals don’t, and if they share
your goals and values, they may be willing to share resources. If you want to
start a reading series but have no space, you will want to look for an organizational
partner that does have an appropriate space and is open to, even
enthusiastic about, your idea. This may be a business, such as a coffeehouse
or bookstore. It may be an organization, such as a library, a theater, or an art
center already invested in promoting culture generally or literature in particular.
But you don’t have to stop with the most obvious partners. Susan
Boskoff tells a story about how the Nevada Arts Council found a space
partner for its Poetry Out Loud competition. The NAC had succeeded well
in aligning its Poetry Out Loud competition with the national finals in
Washington, DC, but less well at making it attractive to Nevada high school
students. Then NAC arranged to hold the finals at the Reno Knitting Factory,
a franchise of the New York City–based concert venue. Suddenly,
Nevada teens had the chance to compete on the same stage where their
favorite bands performed.
Senior centers, high schools, hospitals, even prisons—all may be open
to the right kinds of partnership programs, especially if you can offer them
good programming that will help them further their missions at little cost
to them. Some may even be able to provide a portion of a poet’s honorarium
or travel costs. If your partner is a nonprofit organization, there might
be an opportunity to establish your program under the organization’s
umbrella and apply for grants even if you haven’t yet established your own
status as a nonprofit. If you do this, be careful not to compete with your
partner for grants—make sure you target different organizations and programs
for your funding.
The key to making these partnerships is to ask yourself what’s in it for
the potential partners and be able to articulate these benefits persuasively.
Make sure, before you approach, that you’ve considered things from their
point of view, that you’ve thought about how your program fits into their
missions and needs.