Building Community Coalitions-NEFA 1997

Andrew McKnight

Suni Edson

FolkNotes Editor, CNY Friends of Folk

Central New York Friends of Folk (CNY-FOF) started out as the brainchild of Diane Lansing, Alan Rowoth and several other members of the CNY music scene. It began as a modest electronic mail group for the purpose of increasing interest in folk and acoustic music in and around Syracuse. After much discussion, we began having monthly meetings at a local coffeehouse in the Fall of 1996. Our goals were simple ones: get folk/acoustic music on the radio in Sryacuse and increase public awareness of the plethora of good music. To these ends, we circulated pledge forms among our families and friends and the general public.

With pledge forms in hand, the officers of our group approached WAER in Syracuse and proposed a radio show. It was with great happiness that Common Threads first aired in July of 1997. So much support was shown for folk music during the recent public radio pledge drive, that the general manager of WAER increased the air time from 2 to 3 hours.

Along with the success of the radio show, FOF has begun producing their own quarterly newsletter, Folk Notes, which also first appeared in July 1997. We are proud to announce that the newsletter will be expanded from 8 to 12 pages with the December issue. Information on FOF can be found on the web at http://web.syr.edu/~dgmurdoc/fofhome.htm.

John W. Fuzek

HEAR in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Songwriters Association (RISA)

U. Utah Phillips

Songwriter/musician/poet/storyteller/activist

Visit Utah's homepage at http://www.hidwater.com/utah/

Moderator: Alan Rowoth

Visit Alan's homepage and the new home of Folkbook at www.folkmusic.org

Presentation Outline:

Introductions

Evaluating your Scene -

What are Strengths and Weaknesses?

• Population Proximity to Academia
• Music
• Talent Pool
• Arts Presence
• Tourism
• Radio support
• Print Media support
• Strength of Community Transportation

Based on that evaluation

• What is your Current Market?
• Your Potential Market?
• What resources do you have to get from current to potential? (willing and able volunteers, interested media, etc.)
• What obstacles (usually awareness and publicity is biggest)

Who are Potential Partners in Making This Jump

• Bookstores
• Bed & Breakfasts
• Art galleries
• Restaurants
• Museums
• local and state governments
• Chambers of Commerce
• Tourism Bureaus
• Libraries
• Advocacy groups (be careful though!)
• Certain types of planned or retirement communities
• Organic foodstores

What are potential pitfalls?

• People won t lose money for long-projects have to at least pay for themselves and probably need to turn a profit of some sort
• To keep a scene and its reputation growing by default means that not all of the artists and maybe not all of the venues can get on board. You can t lower the quality bar without risking the reputation - that means that some folks will unfortunately wind up alienated from the coalition building process - this is painful but often necessary.
• Remember - Everybody needs to get something out of it to be willing to put into it
• Be realistic about what you can and cannot accomplish

How can you get the word out to expand the scene?

• Regular newsletter or publication - crosses interest or can be music specific
• Radio (buy a program if necessary!)
• Flyers brochures
• Recordings
• Word-of-mouth
• feature articles in newspapers and magazines -
• find a concept of interest that is bigger than just the event or the artist, such as the cultural tourism angle or the Hear in RI Xmas record - this stuff is newsworthy!

What are goals of the coalition?

• Bigger audiences
• More product sales
• More visitors coming from farther afield
• Build a self-sustaining scene

Analysis:

• how did we each come to the place that we are at
• where are we going in the future?

Question and Answer time

Visit other handouts used at the 1997 NE Regional Folk Alliance Conference