capacity building
12 May 2009
How To Pick a Good Candidate for your CTC VISTA Position
It's true. Most of the CTC VISTAs who apply for projects are fresh
college grads. While there are some folks (Boomers, even some Gen
X'ers) who apply, the majority of us are fresh outta college and eager
to jump in to our first 'real world' jobs. With this in mind, here's some tips in selecting an appropriate candidate for your CTC VISTA position.
Creating A Platform for Participation: An Overview of NAMAC’s Website Launch
Learn more about this site's new content areas and ways you can participate.
Home Improvement: Capacity-Building in the Media Arts
Capacity means the ability to accomplish, change, remodel, or act on
something that is a necessity, but often invisible because it is part
of the operations or architecture of an organization. Since nonprofits
must focus so intently on the work that becomes their public face, they
do not have an easy ability to re-engineer the infrastructure hidden
below. Since 1999, NAMAC has offered modest capacity building grants --
much like capital infusions to either start or complete a much-needed
home improvement project.
Meet Morgan Sully: An Interview with NAMAC's New Online Community Manager
This past July, Morgan Sully arrived at NAMAC headquarters to serve as our Community Technology Center VISTA online community manager. Not only is Morgan remodeling and rebuilding our venerable NAMAC website, but he is creating a number of interactive, web-based pathways for NAMAC members to network.
20 Aug 2007
From Celluloid to Cyberspace: The Media Arts and the Changing Arts World
Current knowledge of the operation of the arts world and its underlying dynamics is limited, especially with regard to the media arts - art that is produced using or combining film, video, and computers. The authors examine the organizational features of the media arts, placing them in the context of the broader arts environment and identifying the major challenges they face. They take a structural point of view, discussing audiences, media artists as a group, arts organizations, and funding for the media arts.
23 Jun 2007
Partnering with our Peers: A Report on the Peer Arts Service Organizations Partnership Project
Consortiums of organizations working together is a great idea - especially in the initial enthusiastic phases when funding is being secured, and the opportunity for projects are being dreamed up.
But in reality, it takes tremendous commitment on the part of the individuals and groups involved to forge long-lasting partnerships which actually make good on their promises.
23 Aug 2005
Facility Design: More than Bricks and Mortar
Space. Think about your organization’s for a moment. Does it inspire you to achieve the lofty goals of your mission? Are you and your constituents incarcerated or liberated by it? Does it invite creativity and connection? In the summer of 2004, the late Dirk Koning of Grand Rapids Community Media Center wrote in the Community Media Review about the need to reconsider how media arts organizations think about space. He challenged his colleagues not to see their spaces as solutions to problems, but rather as expressions of missions rooted in deeply held beliefs and visions for the future. How well does your facility hold up against this litmus test?
08 Jul 1999
Media Arts Administration at Artists' Television Access (II)
The story so far: LMH leaves BAVC, the media art center he's worked at for 10 years, joining Artists' Television Access as Executive Director. He finds an organization of committed volunteers ready to take on the task of rebuilding some essential systems. He also finds a wicked smell of undetermined origin, possibly related to ritualistic sacrifices rumored to be taking place in the immediate neighborhood.
Dynamic Planning and NAMAC's Work
With a planning grant from the NEA, the staff and board of NAMAC conducted a strategic planning retreat in May 1998. We chose to work with Jim Wiegel, a seasoned meeting facilitator with The Institute of Cultural Affairs in Phoenix, Arizona. Having already participated in ICA-facilitated planning workshops through NAMAC s work in the Peer Arts Service Organization Consortium, I was familiar with and impressed by the process they lead an organization through.
