West Park Cultural Center is a non-profit making organization based in Philadelphia. It mainly focuses on ethnic and cultural programs, thus considered as a charity organization. It uses arts and culture as a vital tool in programs that help young people and youths handle and progress in their creative and academic abilities. The organization was chosen since it is a famous and well-known organization across the state. It also has a five-star rating, has made many achievements, changed people’s lives through its programs, and has a much-promoted culture. Their roles are to help children and youth handle their creative and academic abilities, assist families’ access to arts and education for personal development and promote culture by creating forums for arts. The paper focuses mostly on the performance of West Park Cultural Center and answers given during the interview.
I chose Executive director Betty P. Lindley because of her vast experience in chairing organizations. She was an artist and a teacher who came to Philadelphia in 1974. She is behind more than 60 plays directed while she was the Managing Director of the Germantown Theatre. Besides being the co-founder of Venture Theatre, she has held various positions in her career, such as Development officer at art Sanctuary and founding president of Business Association of West Parkside and worked on the program and Board Placement Committees Of PVLA. Her role is to direct the cabinet in charge of implementing major decisions as she has enough experience in running organizations.
Fundraising as an Input to the Organization
The West Park Cultural Center, for over the past years, has not been involved in fundraising. For the last ten years, net fundraising has been $0. It has only been able to get its revenue from contributions and donations, and program services. Some of its programs are arts for literacy, nature programs, and providing support to 18 and older in the community. Therefore, no fundraising is usually done because it can raise its required revenue from donations and programs and meet its functional expenses.
Advice on How to Maintain Donor Relationship
Donor relationship should be one of the key priorities in any given charity organization. Being a charity organization, West Park Cultural Center has sufficient activities on the support they receive from willing donors. Maintaining a great relationship with donors shows that you value and honor them as you will receive donations for years to come. The leader said they have outstanding stewardship of contributions they receive. They make the best from the money they got they make sure it is fully utilized and no deficit or misuse of it, which shall attract confidence among donors of the organization. They also make sure they show appreciation to donors. Appreciation is through personal emails, thank you messages, tweet a thank you note with the donor’s name, or tag the donor on Facebook with their name mentioned entirely. Not only maintaining donor relationships but also attracting more donors and creating a motivation to receive more money.
They also report what they did and achieved through the donations showing every revenue allocation, total expenses, and activities done. Making a report shall help motivate them how their money has been used, and it shall create confidence and trust in money donated. They also conduct surveys and polls among donors to get feedback on specific areas and recommendations on how some programs may be done and if it interests them. They also invite them to their conferences or organization programs and make them feel like members of the team, and they as well give them dressing codes of the organization.
Best Resource for Fundraising
Their best resource is the programs they run and from the donations. Some of its programs are arts for literacy, nature programs, and providing support to 18 and above in the community. Children and youth have been handling their creative and academic abilities, Assist families’ access to arts and education for personal development. In turn, the activities bring revenue which helps run the organization and meet functional expenses. From time to time, they attract more donors through activities that increase donor contributions.
Maintaining Good Donor Relationships
They started working on donor relationships as soon as the organization began. They could write thank you notes, send emails, and report their achievements using donations. They as well held the event annually and could invite the donors and make use of every dollar. In turn, it attracted many donors, and the current ones were happy about the organization, and they could get more donations, thus creating a good donor relationship. There could be well-prepared video slides in the event, and they were more appealing to the donors, and on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, they could show appreciation by mentioning the donor (Banyai, 2016). They sat down as an executive and observed that all these activities promoted good relationships, and they started the implementation process. In conclusion, this is how The West Park Cultural Center has been maintaining good relations with its donors, and below are responses to questions that arose during the interview.
Cases of Corruption and Embezzlement of Funds
The executive director said that cases involved are very few, and when such cases occur, they make sure they know the case and funds lost, and in the event, they know the exact people involved in the scandal and who are obliged to pay. She, therefore, made it clear that for over the past years, no funds have been lost without whereabouts, and it was so good for the organization. She added the organization has trustworthy members in implementing its financial decisions.
The Choice of the Name
They chose the name of West Park, one of the earliest settlers in America and cultural center since most of its programs are about promoting culture and people. It has helped children and youth handle their creative and academic abilities, Assisted families’ access to arts and education for personal development. The name of the organization corresponds to its activities and aims; hence it is an appropriate name.
Reference
Bányai, E. (2016). The integration of social media into corporate processes. Society and Economy, 38(2), 239-259. Web.