Project Highlights

Economic Development

• The Worcester Cultural Coalition, in partnership with the City of Worcester and the Central Massachusetts Convention and Visitors Bureau began Worcester Wayfinding: a multi-year cultural economic development initiative designed to include strategic planning, product testing and implementation of a wayfinding system for the city of Worcester. The initiative brings together a public private partnership with the mutual goal of identifying Worcester, literally through signage and creatively, as a cultural destination. In 2007 the wayfinding prototypes, mapping and costing of the system were completed and installed. The partnership is seeking 2.4 million dollars to implement the program.
• Worcester Cultural Coalition member organizations – which now number 58 strong – accounted for some 2,255,114 visitors to Worcester in calendar 2007. Visitor count grows to more than 3,284,290 when other Worcester, non-member institutions (DCU Center, Worcester Tornadoes, etc.) are factored in.
• Worcester Windows: A Community Gallery Program uses visible, empty storefronts in downtown Worcester, primarily along Main Street, as exhibit space to enhance the City’s downtown and to provide display opportunities for local emerging and established artists. The program has expanded to 15 storefront windows and hundreds of people have attended the opening receptions and historic walking tours of the properties. The program has also generated several sales of exhibited works.
• Peripheral Vision: A New Look at Communities - Worcester is featured as one of four cities in a study completed by the Arts Extension Service, for the Massachusetts Cultural Council and National Endowment for the Arts, examining best practices and challenges of cultural economic development initiatives. It was highlighted as a model creative-city initiative at the Americans for the Arts conferences in Miami and Philadelphia.
• Films - The Cultural Development Office assisted with the production and site search for four major films in calendar year 2008.

Advocacy

• Creative City Dialogue: the Worcester Way, a philosophy of good city-making continues to serve as a point of reference and community engagement. Worcester Cultural Coalition was a presenter at the Creative Economy forums hosted at the request of Governor Deval Patrick and the Arts, Culture and Tourism committee chaired by Rep. Eric Turkington. Worcester also hosted two creative economy roundtable discussions for both non-profit and for profit businesses. Worcester’s Cultural Development Officer was appointed to the Commonwealth’s Creative Economy Roundtable.
• Worcester Cultural Coalition was a strong advocate for restoration of budget cuts for Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as reinstatement of Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund.  Six Worcester Cultural Coalition member organizations received Cultural Facilities funding in 2008, the most of any community in the Commonwealth.

Promoting Arts & Culture

• The Worcester Cultural Coalition, under the auspices of its Promoting Arts and Culture committee, has developed and produced three city-wide, cross-promotional marketing campaigns: Fall Fest, Summerfest and Cool Culture in Worcester. Generating posters and flyers to promote more than sixty five unique events, the campaigns successfully drove potential attendees to www.worcestermass.org/culture, which saw a distinct and consistent jump in hits to the culture page throughout the duration of the campaigns. Over 65,000 attended the 2007 fall festivals, including a significant number of college students.
• Worcester Cultural Coalition publishes a bi-monthly e-newsletter Culture Connections with a distribution of nearly 5,000, supporting over 300 public events in calendar year 200-2008.
• Additionally the Cultural Coalition oversaw more than 1,700 unique media plugs in/on eight unique media outlets with an estimated combined cash value of over $225,000.
• Creative Confabs, a roundtable confab was held between cultural organizations, college faculty and administration and students to discuss ways to better integrate cultural programming into the academic life of the college community.
• WOO Card is a unique marketing tool to engage college students in the City’s bustling cultural scene! In our inaugural year (2007-2008), we partnered with the Colleges of Worcester Consortium to distribute 12,000 free WOO Card swipe cards to students. Students activate their WOO Card online which in turn makes them eligible for a host of promotional events and special discounts offered by Cultural Coalition organizations. (In coming years, the intention is to grow the WOO Card program to include for-profit entities, such as restaurants and retailers, and to make cards available to the general public and visitors alike.) In Fall 2008, Clark University integrated the WOO Card into its student ID card; all Clark students now have access to the WOO.  An additional 7,000 cards were ordered for distribution at other campuses for Fall 2008. The Fred Harris Daniels Foundation has underwritten this program in support of this effort. Funding from the Foundation will help defray the costs for card reader equipment, marketing and promotion of the card.  The John and Abigail Adams Fund of the Massachusetts Cultural Council also provided support. Tom Ingrassia was hired as the program coordinator.
• Worcester Big List Cooperative brings together members of the WCC to keep database information current and to simplify cultural list exchanges between participating members. The program was launched and member organizations now access the Big List for direct mail and e-mail marketing campaigns.
• Sage 50 - With assistance of the Fred Harris Daniels Foundation, seven Worcester Cultural Coalition institutions worked together to develop a common approach to acquiring Sage 50 fundraising software.  Managing and maintaining accurate and up-to-date information on institutional constituents (including donors, potential donors, members, and volunteers) is vital to all non-profits.
• Cultural Plan - Coalition members worked with Gail Randall from the Non-Profit Support Center of the Greater Worcester Community Foundation to create a new cultural plan for the coalition. The goals and objectives continue to support the mission to shine a spotlight on the cultural activity in Worcester and support the creative city agenda.