Chorale members Laura Leutheuser, Ellie Tucker, Cathy Crater, Emily
Amburgey, and Mary Wolfram.
Facebook/Courtesy
The Michigan Council for Art and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) awarded a grant each to the Arts Chorale in Hillsdale and the Sauk Theatre in Jonesville this year after each organization petitioned the state for extra funds. The Hillsdale Arts Chorale received a grant of $7,500 to fund advertising for performances; the Sauk Theatre was given $12,500 to aid in paying for a full-time executive director position.
Executive director of the Hillsdale Arts Chorale Greg Bailey ‘89 said this is the first year the Chorale will receive a grant from the MCACA. The grant is funded by taxpayers in Michigan and around the nation because part of the grant money from the MCACA comes from the National Endowment of the Arts. The NEA gives money to the state of Michigan to give out at its discretion through the MCACA.
Bailey applied to receive the MCACA grant after hearing several other local organizations received grants, including the Sauk.
According to Bailey, the grant money will help mostly with advertising.
“We actually asked for $15,000 to cover all our payroll costs: being the conductor, the accompanist, and the executive director myself, and the recording costs of the concerts to then free up dollars to upgrade our website and reach out more into the community through social media and other direct mail, newspaper, postcards, and get the message out to get more attendance at our concerts,” Bailey said.
The Hillsdale Arts Chorale was founded in 1973 and has survived on ticket sales, contributions, and advertisement space in its programs. The last few years, however, the Arts Chorale has suffered financially due to a drop in income coupled with higher cost performances.
“Our budget has been stretched the last few years by some extra wardrobe needs and such. Some business had left,” Bailey said. “Our budget was pretty much what we receive and what we need to operate the organization each year, so we didn’t have a lot of wiggle room. It didn’t give us a lot of additional funds for marketing and that sort of thing.”
Since receiving the grant, the Arts Chorale has been able to devote more money to marketing and branding, and even hired a consultant to help with social media, the website, and print media.
Bailey expects the extra advertising to raise revenue, but he will not be able to measure the grant’s effect until the first concert on Nov. 6.
According to the executive director of Sauk Theatre Trinity Bird, Sauk is receiving the grant now for the third year. Since 2015, the grant has provided enough funding to help pay for Bird to be a part-time employee, then a full-time employee on July 1 of this year.
The grant writing chairman on the Sauk board, Bud Vear, is responsible for applying for the MCACA grant each year and overseeing compliance with the terms. MCACA grant recipients are required to acknowledge the assistance of the MCACA and NEA.
According to Vear, having a full-time executive director saved the theatre from disaster this year.
“The impact of having a paid employee has been unbelieveable. We went through a major disaster in January. A part of the ceiling, a fairly large part, collapsed,” said Vear. “The fact that we had a paid executive director on hand after the disaster of the ceiling collapse allowed us to get through that quite smoothly because he was there on sight to work with the insurance company, to work with the contractors, and see that everything got done properly.”
Since first receiving the grant and getting a paid executive director in Bird, Sauk Theatre’s donations, advertising, attendance, and volunteers have all increased because of the work Bird has been able to do.
“It’s a good time to be involved at the Sauke,” Bird said.
