blueprints

Tools for Practical Dreaming | 209
Build Partnerships With Local and State Agencies
You got in touch with your local and state arts agencies during your
needs assessment. The good news about arts councils is that their job is to
bring the arts to communities. If you’ve done a thorough assessment and
assembled a convincing case that there is a need for your program, chances
are your local arts council will be willing at least to advise you on technical
matters (such as how to obtain nonprofit status, for example) and possibly
to lend material support. They might do the latter through planning assistance,
through connecting you with other potential partners, or even
through funding.
Arts agencies may have various ways of providing financial help, depending
both on agency rules and on the structure of your program. Though
most arts agencies require formal grant proposals and nonprofit status from
programs they fund, some may be able to help less formally, perhaps by
helping arrange and pay for travel or providing honoraria directly to the
poets involved in your program. Make an appointment with the literature
programmer at the agency to talk over various possibilities. Be prepared to
articulate the needs your program will address, how you plan to fulfill those
needs, what resources you have, and what you need. Be ready to discuss
how your program will fit into and help further the overall mission of the
agency.
The issue of staffing—who does the work—may be to some degree
addressed by your partnerships, especially when you are just getting started.
But you can’t count on your partners to do everything for you. Many, if not
most, arts organizations and programs run on shoestring budgets, so they
begin with all-volunteer staffs. Thus, the trick at first is finding a way to
make sure that your all-volunteer staff isn’t all you all the time. You don’t
want to burn out before you even start.
In the beginning, your staff might comprise only you and one or two
friends. A small program with occasional events can run under such circumstances
for a long time—as long as the people involved remain interested
and available and as long as the program doesn’t grow significantly.
Moving from a volunteer staff to a paid staff is another matter; this
requires significant and stable funding. Nuts, Bolts, and Widgets: Tools for
Tinkering, at the back of this book, provides an extensive list of resources
that can help guide you through this and other transitions.