FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 16th, 2015
Your Arts Council, Cornwall & the Counties is going through some changes, redefining itself to better serve the community. YAC membership is changing!
Cornwall, ON – Your Arts Council, Cornwall & the Counties (YAC) is redefining the way they do membership. Betty Healey, Chairperson for the board council, explains: “We have struggled with this issue since our very beginning. We wanted to be completely inclusive, offering our services to the community as a whole, but responsible governance dictated we needed to ensure our sustainability through core-funding initiatives like membership fees. We are not happy with how these fees, as modest as they have been for an individual membership, have isolated us from a large portion of our potential membership who either can’t or won’t pay membership fees. So, we’re getting rid of them. As of today, anyone can sign up for a YAC membership and it is absolutely free.”
Betty went on to explain how the new funding model will work. “We’ve always had user fees, and we’ll still have them for individual projects. There will be user fees associated with many of our events, workshops, mentoring, and grant-writing activities, but none of that is new. Basically, if you need an individualized service that uses our personnel or resources, there may be a user fee. We anticipate recovering 10% of our operating budget through user-pay fees, so we’re not talking about big amounts here. Some of our funding will come from project and core-funding grants, and the balance we hope to raise online through crowdfundng.”
“In summary, anyone who wants to become a member of YAC can sign up at any time and at no cost. Pick the ‘Become A YAC Member’ link on the main page of our website, or you can call or write us and we’ll send you a form. Anyone who wants to support us financially can do so independently of membership with payment(s) they set up and control as they wish just by clicking the ‘Donate’ link on our website. We’ll also be looking to corporations and groups who can sponsor us at a variety of tiered sponsorship levels. The higher the tier selected, the more prevalent their brand will be on our communications, website, advertising and event communications materials.“
For more information please contact:
Richard Salem, Facilitator,
Your Arts Council, Cornwall & the Counties,
1-888-405-7922
richard@yourartscouncil.ca
youartscouncil.ca