Emergency Resiliency Fund Virtual Town Hall

Patti Pon: Okay so I think we’ll get going and get underway to honour everyone’s time. Thank you all very much for joining us today. If we haven’t met, my name is Patti Pon, I’m the president and CEO of Calgary Arts Development.

Thank you so much for joining us today for this virtual town hall that is a bit of an update. There’s a number of things that have happened since our last update meeting which I don’t know, for you but for me feels like a lifetime ago, but really it was just only back in May.

So… today umm I want to begin as we always begin, with an acknowledgement of the land and the land on which we are meeting, or I am joining you today. We are on Mohkinstsis, which is the Blackfoot name for the place we are in, Calgary. And it is the ancestral home of the Blackfoot people and the home of the members of the Blackfoot Confederacy, comprised of the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina, the Siksika First Nations and the Stoney Nakoda people, and of course the Métis people of Alberta Region 3. While this is the ancestral home of our original peoples, we now call this place home for all of us and it is my great honour and privilege to be a settler on this land and share in the care of this land. And when I think about the land acknowledgement and often I end my acknowledgement by saying you know the honour I have in taking care of sharing in the wellbeing of this land, that includes the well being of its people, and that’s all of you, and all of us who call this place home.

And I’m particularly mindful of that fact given the conversation we are having today about the Emergency Resiliency Funds that were entrusted to us by The City of Calgary last month, with the information and the research findings that our friends from Stone-Olafson will be sharing with all of you today.

All of this is in support of caring for each other.

In the very first virtual town hall that we had back in May, no, March, sorry, all those “M” months, I talked about people first, and we have to care about each other, we have to take care of each other, and in my experience over these last several months, that view hasn’t changed for me. And it’s been such a wonderful honour and privilege for me to work with our team here at Calgary Arts Development as they designed the programs related to the emergency resiliency funds, I hope that you’ll see that context within the program itself.

So the CADA team is here if you can look on the participants list we’ve changed all of our names to put CADA as a prefix to our names so you know who we are. For those of you who are joining us and are board members, I would welcome you and invite you to also put the CADA prefix in front. That’s just a way for all of you to know and if you want to privately message any of us you’re welcome to do that. Please do.

Our agenda for today, I’m looking this way because my script is on this screen and my camera is on this screen, so, our agenda today a number of things, really an update on what’s been happening at Calgary Arts Development recently.

I’ll give you a bit of an overview of 2019 for those of you that have been with us in the years past, we’ve traditionally held a report to community in alignment with the annual general meeting we have with our shareholder, which is represented by City Council for The City of Calgary.

This year we’re doing a similar thing, but it’s all virtual, so I’ll provide you with a bit of an overview of 2019 and then my colleagues from the community investment team led by Sara Bateman will do a bit of an overview around the new program, the Emergency Resiliency Funds and the two programs that have been designed in that respect. Then our friends Kim and Matt from Stone-Olafson will share some information with regard to the Experience Economy project that we’ve been a partner in, really around research we’ve undertaken about Albertans’ views on returning back to arts experiences in real life. So they’ve got some great updates and data there.

And then a bit of an update on other CADA projects and partner initiatives that we are undertaking in the months and weeks ahead. So that’s what we’re going to cover today. Before we get underway with all of that, I’m going over to Melissa to just give us the 411 on all things Zoom and technical in our meeting today. So over to you, Melissa.

Melissa Tuplin: Hello my friends! And welcome. I want to shout out, we have a new team member running these events for us as we move through the next few weeks. Marc Lavallee is a wonderful friend who is helping us with the technology. If you have any issues with the technology please message him or myself or if you have any questions about the accessibility we are here to assist with that.

You’ll notice that we have two ASL interpreters with us today, Janice is speaking right now and Kimberley will be joining us. They both have named their videos ASL interpreter with their names. You can pin their video to be the main screen by clicking the three dots on top of the corner of their video screen, they will be swapping half way through so we will do a brief pause if you need to switch with that. But I would recommend however if you’re not speaking, please turn your videos off. That way when you click that three-dotted menu in your top right hand corner you can click hide non-video participants and that will show only the interpreter and the individual who is speaking and that will be very beneficial for us. Click the top menu as well to rename yourself, you may change your name as well as provide your pronouns if you wish.

We will be sharing screens for presentation and we know that does make it difficult for continuing to see the translators. You can use the toolbar at the top of your, again, top right hand of your screen to swap the video view so that the interpreter is larger. Unfortunately, this does make it a little bit more challenging to see the presentations but the speaking notes will be there and we will, of course, be recording this meeting for future reference and to share with folks on our website. We do have a transcription app called otter.ai. Click the red box at the top of the screen if you would like to use it. They are working on other languages right now but unfortunately for the time being it is only in English. And because it is artificial intelligence it is not 100% accurate. But it can be used to follow along with today’s conversation and a fully edited transcript will also be available on our website.

Please be aware that if you are using the chatbox, which we highly encourage you to do so to share questions and comments with us as we move through today, we have endeavoured to make sure that your private chats remain private, however as Zoom continues with their updates there is a possibility that when we download the chat we may be able to see your own private chats. Just keep that in mind, know that the private chats will not be shared online as well.

We’ll be collecting questions throughout the meeting, myself and Gregory Burbidge my colleague will be collecting questions so you can type them into the chatbox and we will collect those from you. When we open the floor to conversation, from the participants list at the bottom of your screen, you’ll see a raise hand function. We’ll also be keeping track of those who have their hands raised. We really will endeavour to get to as many people as possible today but if we run out of time we will try to make sure that we get those questions answered for you at a later date.

I believe that is oh, one more thing. When you speak please clearly state your name and then pause before speaking, so that the interpreters can catch up and people have time to find your screen. So if your Zoom username is different from the name you’ll introduce yourself by, please update that right now. And I think at this point then I will throw it back to either Patti or just move right on to Sara, no, Patti will begin. Alright thank you Patti.

Patti Pon: It’s me, it’s all Patti all the time right now. I’m just going to take a bit of time off the top here to talk a little bit about 2019. So as I said we traditionally at this time of year we usually have our report to community where we talk about what’s happened in the year past and start to kind of paint a picture of what we think the year ahead will look like and where we find ourselves now. Something that was interesting is that our annual general meeting was a public meeting in City Council chambers, so I know that some of you may have been watching the live stream of that AGM back at the end of June, so the slides I’m going to share with you are the same as at the AGM, but again if there are any questions you have please feel free to put them in the chat or raise your hand as per Melissa’s instructions and I’m certainly happy to do that. But um so I’ll just give you a kind of a bit of a top-line and ask Helen if she can start the slides.

Awesome. Thanks very much. I guess I should have asked you to do it before. So 2019 was quite a remarkable year and as I was saying earlier it almost felt like a lifetime ago. So much has happened in 2020 that it was actually really great for me to be able to have this opportunity to reflect back a bit on what we started in 2019 and how it has helped us get to where we are today. Next slide please.

When we made our case in 2018 so, the way our budgets are prepared with City Council is we make a four-year case for support, and so for the 2019 to 2022 budget cycle, the CADA team was making our case at the end of 2018 and it was at that time as I know you’re all aware that we realized a transformational increase to our budget, we doubled in size. And at that time we identified three areas of impact that we believe this increased investment would affect. One was social, as measured by increased offerings, events and access for citizens, higher attendance and that the arts offerings more closely reflected Calgary’s demographics and that’s certainly something that we’ll be talking about later on and have been talking about this year through another series of town halls.

We had a youth area of impact which was about trying to stem the tide of a reduction in youth participation in the arts that we’ve been seeing since 2013. And then the last one of course is the economic impact, as demonstrated by the creation of more jobs, more artists being hired, and increasing the annual value add or GDP, gross domestic product impact from the organizations that we were making grant investments to. In 2019, so the first year of our four-year cycle, I am so pleased to announce that we moved the needle in all three of those areas. Next slide please.

Or not? Oh there we go! Yeah, next slide, thank you! In 2019 total attendance saw that more Calgarians experienced the arts over 2018. We had increased youth participation for the first time since 2013. Our volunteer hours increased by almost 10% which is significant, and even though we had more events downtown leading to a greater vibrancy, there were still events in all wards of the city with 49% of the total events taking place outside of the downtown core.

In 2019 the total number of events that were held was 13,300, almost 13,400, and the total number of youth events was just under 10,000. So once again, for all of those stats that you see on this slide there were 23,000 events that were exhibited, produced, presented by just the organizations we made a grant to, so that doesn’t include what else happens in private venues on Music Mile, or at the Jubilee Auditorium aside from the opera, the ballet, or the Saddledome with concerts. So the next time someone says to you there’s nothing to do in Calgary, you can just go “Nuh uh! J’accuse! That is not true!” Because 23,000 events is a lot. Next slide please.

Earlier I mentioned that one of the ways in which we are looking at our impact measures is to ensure that the programs and the organizations that we work with that we have the honour of being partners with, more closely reflect Calgary. You’ve heard me say like a broken record we are Canada’s third most diverse city—one in three Calgarians is a visible minority and our programs should reflect that.

The organizations that we work with, their stages, their exhibition spaces, their offices, their boards should reflect that. And so it was so great to be able to support folks like Lanre Ajayi with the inaugural Ethnik Arts Festival during Black History Month in February, and that his work contributed to a 46% increase in arts events for diverse and multicultural audiences and a 10% increase in events that specifically engaged Indigenous communities. Next slide please.

And in particular when I talk about right relations with the original peoples of this land, one of the highlights for me personally was our work with the Original People’s Investment Program for those from the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities who now call Calgary and the surrounding Treaty 7 area home. This program was led by Sable Sweetgrass from our team and an entirely Indigenous advisory circle who designed the program, who assessed the programs, who talked about how we could contribute most meaningfully through our program and this is the result that you see here. And since then we’ve seen the work that has been created just be remarkable and astonishing and it’s just been such a treat and a pleasure to see the strength of that circle. And again I can’t thank Sable enough for her leadership on that program, so many kudos to you, Sable. Next slide please.

Further on our journey of reconciliation we held our staff retreat this year at Blackfoot, or last year, I’m sorry, at Blackfoot Crossing. We also held just a remarkable gathering led by Saa’kokoto, he is an elder with the Blood Tribe who led us on an understanding of the land at Writing on Stone Provincial Park and of the wonderful work that you see by artists on that site.

For any of you who took part in our Mayor’s Lunch last year you saw the musical land acknowledgement, this is the group that was just so great in helping us with that and we’ve received so many wonderful comments since then.

And of course our OPIP process, and then lastly Aisinna’kiiks, which in Blackfoot, and I know I haven’t said, I’m still working on my pronunciation, means those who write, those who draw, and that is our dinner and dialogue series where we work to build relations between settler and Indigenous communities. So it’s just been such a wonderful and gratifying journey for me and I know for members of my team in this regard. Next slide please.

And then, of course, the economic impact. More and more we’re all hearing the importance of the economy and I am always very adamant about saying the arts pull their weight. For the 9.1 million dollars that Calgary Arts Development invested in 2019 in grants, those organizations primarily, so this doesn’t even include the individual grants who generated economic output, 131 million dollars plus was generated directly back into the community. And for those of you who are the economists in the room that’s a pretty good return on our 9 million dollars, to see 131 of that go back. That represents a 5% increase. And the most significant part of that is back to people-first, the good majority of that went into job creation, contracts for artists, and other people. So the people helped generate that direct economic output and I think it’s a really important note to make and to repeat again. Next slide please.

When I talk about job creation, 1,064 additional jobs were created. Some of you may have seen the report that was done quite a few years ago now by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and in it the AFA reported that for every additional million dollars that goes into the arts, 22 jobs are created. And in 2019 we actually hit that benchmark and then some. So a million bucks into oil and gas by the way, which is particularly interesting to note at this time, two jobs are created. Now part of that is what are the salaries relative to, but the job creation piece is people-first, getting people back to work, that’s what the arts do, that’s what the arts sector did in 2019. Might be a different case in 2020, but that will be for next year’s conversation. In addition, full-time equivalents that were hired by the sector were 168, and the number of additional artists that were hired over 2018 was 896 so there were in total 884 full-time equivalent jobs and the number of artists was 9,420. Next slide.

Now as I had mentioned I talked about 9.1 million dollars was invested through our grant investment programs in 2019, that was 102% increase in our grant investments over 2018. So a doubling and then some of our programs and the way that we were able to work with the sector and to see the kind of movement, those increases that I mentioned earlier, is a real testament to you in the sector who responded so well to the programs that we talked about.

When we made our case to City Council we talked about a good chunk of the increase was going to be about catching up, that historically we were behind per capita to our colleagues in other cities across Canada. We were at the bottom and by the way, doubling up shot us to the middle of the pack, so we’re still not up there with Toronto or Vancouver or even Edmonton. We’re closer but we’re not there. And even in that context of catch up, you still managed to show more, to hire back those artists that you couldn’t hire the years before, to bring new jobs into the workforce that you couldn’t do before. So that’s a really notable accomplishment and I hope that you share this with your boards, because this is what you do. This is how you stretch the dollars. Next slide.

Of course the largest program that we administer and this is in response to what the community has told us is the Operating Grant Program. It’s the single largest request from our community when we asked the community what is the thing that is most critical to your business model, your operating model? And what we heard was unrestricted predictable funding streams, and that’s what the Operating Grant Program is.

The year before, 7.3 million in 2019 we invested I think 4 million dollars and if I’m wrong someone from my team will correct me in the chatbox, and so that’s what I mean about we thought it was catch up and it was for sure, even in that context you were able to stretch those dollars to really help us as I said move the needle and show progress to our shareholder. Next slide.

In the last several weeks this slide has become even more important for us to talk about and that is our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. This is Toyin on the left as you’re facing the screen who founded the Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation, and I guess our commitment to EDIA is most visible through our programs and our ability to put the dollars in the hands of the very communities who have the closest and most direct connections to underserved and under-represented communities.

And we have more work to do in that regard and some of you have likely joined us for conversations we’ve been having for the last couple of weeks concerning anti-racism and our work around equity, diversity, inclusion and access.

I know that some of you were with me today earlier on a call where we heard from a number of BIPOC artists who shared their own personal experiences in Calgary’s arts community, and it was heartbreaking. And CADA’s commitment to create better systems is something that I take very seriously and we invite any of you to come along with us on this journey. It’s an important thing for us to consider as we talk about 2020 and beyond. Next slide please.

Another area of work that we’ve undertaken is the Artists as Changemakers Program which is in its third, was in its third year in 2019. And in 2019 we put the passion and the work and the practice of artists who use change-making as part of their practice into action by partnering with organizations Action Dignity, Calgary On Purpose, and Trico Homes to use artists in addressing complex challenges of arts and social justice, arts and belonging, and creative living in place for seniors. And you’ll, I’m sure you’ll recognize many of the faces on that slide. Next one please.

Arts-led city building is the second of our two strategic priorities. Our first one is of course fostering a sustainable and resilient arts sector primarily through our granting programs, through our knowledge and research and you’ll hear about some of that very shortly from Matt and Kim, and the second priority of two for us is as I’ve said arts-led city building. In 2019 we partnered with a number of organizations that presented or produced We Will Rock You, a 21 city North American tour where over half of the cast and crew were from Alberta and a good majority of that Alberta crew and artists were Calgarian and got 21 weeks worth of work.

We also invested in the Glow Festival downtown where a number of artists and arts-led projects were featured, we had the Off-Country Festival that coincided with the Canadian Country Music Awards that generated I think it was $18 million dollars in economic activity for Calgary, and we partnered with Stagehand on Live and Unexpected who initiated and inaugurated a busker’s program at the International Airport, YYC. In their first year of the program artists were paid as well as able to receive tips from travellers. YYC received a North American award from their industry association in Marketing and Engagement for this program and pre-COVID 19 Stagehand was having conversations with New Orleans, and other cities in North America to do a similar program there. Next slide.

So that’s a bit of an overview of 2019. It feels kind of weird to be talking about 2019 and knowing what we know has happened in 2020, however I think what it did for me as a reminder was reaffirm for me the confidence and the belief I have in the power of the arts to make a difference and to make a difference on those three kind of pillars I talked to, social, youth, economic and so much more beyond that. During COVID 19 look at how Calgarians have leaned on the arts, and particularly Calgary arts. That’s a very palpable real thing that people notice and so I think the opportunity is here for us to continue with that as we look ahead to what the road might look like. So in that context, I’m going to hand it over to Sara Bateman, our Director of Community Investment and Impact, to share with you some more about the 2 million dollars in emergency resiliency funds and the programs that have been designed. Thanks so much Sara.

Sara Bateman: Thanks Patti. Hello everybody, I’m Sara Bateman and I’m going to try to share my screen. I’m going to keep this pretty high-level today, we launched the Emergency Resiliency Fund a couple of weeks ago, about a week and a half ago. It’s on our website but we wanted to just have a place and time for people to ask questions as we go through this. So I’m just going to… great.

So just a little bit of background and context, back in May, the middle of May, City Council approved as part of a wider community resiliency package, 2 million dollars for the arts in recovery and resiliency needs. So as we thought about designing this it was actually really tricky to design funding for a crisis that continues. And as we saw the losses of revenue increase we realized we couldn’t go back to fix what is lost but let’s look ahead and build a funding program that can help build to the future that will come. We don’t know what that’s going to look like, so we hope that these two phases that we have focused on recovery and resiliency will help build up some of the foundations and adaptability that we need for the sector.

The City did say that this was for arts organizations and while we know that there is a great need for artist support as well, this is an organizational focused grant program. And as we designed it, despite the difficulty, we were trying to make sure that it was accessible for all arts organizations specifically non-profit, so and that kind of goes…. Couple of barriers but it is non-profit arts organizations as per the mandate from the City.

The two programs within the Emergency Resiliency Fund or the ERF you will hear me say, is the Recovery Fund and the Resiliency Fund. The Recovery Fund is our first phase and then we’ll go into the Resiliency and that mirrors the approach the City is taking for COVID recovery and just so the arts can align with their City’s mandate as well.

So I’m going to dive into the Recovery Fund and maybe before I do if you have any questions as I’m talking about this, my team is monitoring the chat so you can either type your question in there or raise your hand and they will and I will answer the questions probably at the end. So I just want to make sure everybody knows if they have questions the chat is the best way to do that.

So the Recovery Fund—it’s already open. The deadline is for the letter of intent, so for those that are Operating Grant clients, all you have to do is send an email to our colleague Alisha and she’ll make sure you get access to it. The other thing we’re doing for operating grant clients or applicants is if you’ve already applied for the operating grant increase which the deadline was a couple of days ago, we’re going to port over the information that’s applicable over to the Recovery Fund application, but you’ll have to let Alisha know if you want to apply for that to get access so you can review the information and add any pertinent information.

For those of you that did not apply for the operating grant, you just have to send a letter of intent and that information is on our website and we will make sure you get access to it. So a little bit of more details, is these will be grants up to a maximum of $50,000—we have a total pool for the Recovery Fund of a million dollars, so that’s half of what The City gave us. And the intent of this one is really to say how do you build up those foundational pieces of your organization so that you are ready or stronger for what’s to come.

So what we’ve heard in some of the surveys that we’ve done is how do you put money to human resources to hold on to those people that you need for your long term resiliency and sustainability. What kind of strategic or scenario planning do you need so you can prepare for what is to come, there’s so many unknowns right now, so scenario planning I think is a really big one. This Recovery Fund is also to strengthen maybe some of your administration, your operations or technology pieces that you might need, and the online information goes into some of those deeper pieces, some more details about it. But it’s really about what do you need to strengthen your organization because of losses from COVID.

Everybody’s trying to figure out what they need to be to be able to adapt to what’s going, so this is again just about foundational strengthening. And so if you would like to put some money into investing in some of those foundational pieces you can apply for this. It’s really to make your organization strong in these times of COVID. Or maybe not strong, but in a better position to be able to make decisions for your organization. We are navigating really uncertain times, we know that, it’s actually hard to design this without knowing what we might need.

So that led us to our second fund, which we’re calling the Resiliency Fund and again because of the uncertainty of COVID, we had started to hear some ideas that arts organizations were adapting, trying new things, as we have to. We can’t go back to what is, so how do we start adapting to what will be. But because there’s so much uncertainty we designed this fund in two phases: we’re taking in a first intake on September 14 and a second one October 19.

Again, grants are up to $50,000 and this time our pool is 1.15 million, and that’s a little bit more because we actually combined the project grant for organizations into this pool. And the reason we did that is was we felt like most project grants for organizations this year, we only had $150,000 for that, but we felt like all of those projects would probably be adapted due to COVID whether it’s, you know, instead of having an inside event you’re having it outside, or you’re having it online or you have to adapt planning for COVID, so we felt there was a reason to be able to embed the project grant in here.

So the Resiliency Fund can be something you want to try; it’s for initiatives that contribute to the resiliency of your organization and the arts sector. So it really, we want to look at how you’re adapting to the COVID reality. We know we’re not going back, so how are you adapting and trying things as we go forward, despite the uncertainty. So it might be a new project or it might be changing some of your business models, or, we’re really looking at adaptive approaches as well as collaborative.

One of the pieces we’re starting to hear is different collaborations along a spectrum—some people are sharing some resources all the way up to mergers and amalgamations, so there’s a whole spectrum of collaboration and we think as we navigate these uncertain times of COVID we are going to have to depend on our friends in the sector to do that. So that’s going to be one of the criteria we look at is how are you thinking differently about your approach to how you’re engaging your audience, how you’re delivering your artistic practice, and or how you structure your organization. So those are some of the things we’re looking at, both adaptive and collaborative for that.

So I wanted to keep this super high level, the Recovery is really foundations for your organization and the Resiliency is how are you changing and how are you adapting to what will be, and you can apply for both, you don’t have to apply for both, but you could. So they’re not connected, but you’re eligible for that, so I just want to make sure that that’s clear as well. So maybe what we’ll do is we’ll open it up for a few questions and see if I can clarify anything? Greg or Melissa, are there any questions?

I see a couple of questions on our document. So can the money received be used for new endeavours related to COVID and what is the use restricted to? So yes, it can be endeavours that are connected to COVID, everybody is trying new things, it’s really around adapting what you have done in the past to meet this new reality. So it has to be related to a response to COVID, I think is the critical piece of it, so that’s the element. It might be something new or it might be an adaptation of something you’re already doing. I hope that answers that question.

There’s not a lot of restrictions to this right now because of the uncertainty but we want to really make sure for the Recovery you have a very specific piece of your operations that you’re investing in to strengthen and for the Resiliency you’re trying something different or collaborating to try to adapt to the new reality. And we want to keep it pretty open because there’s so much we do not know in these COVID times.

Do you choose phase 1 or phase 2 to apply for? I think I just answered that, you can apply to both so and you know we kind of built it a little bit so that you know for those that apply into Recovery they’re building the foundations so they could adapt. Some arts organizations are at a very weak stage right now because of the COVID impact, so we want to make sure that they have an opportunity for some investment in those critical pieces.

And yep, so to ask, yep we can apply for both funds and what’s the best way to book time with CADA to discuss these applications? Thanks I actually missed some of my notes on that. So one of the challenges we had was we are also doing our operating grant increase program right now as well as our project grant for individuals and collectives, so my team is quite maxed out so we utilized other resources from within the team. Alisha Gordon is helping us out this summer and she’s your best contact for the Recovery Fund. So the first fund that’s this summer. Her email is on our website, Alisha Gordon, and I’m not sure Alisha if you’re on the call if you want to show your face, you don’t have to, I don’t want to put you on the spot—but oh there’s Alisha!

So she’s the person you’ll be in touch with for the Recovery Fund with your letter of intent any questions you have, as well as for the Operating Grant clients to get access and intent to apply, so she’s your best person for the Recovery. For Resiliency, the Resiliency Fund which happens in the fall we have Kaley Beisiegel, Kaley are you on the call? I didn’t see you on the participants, but Kaley has been helping us for years at CADA on a number of projects and she’ll be supported, both Alisha and Kaley will be supported by our CI team to answer any kind of trickier questions but they’re really going to help us put together the assessment teams and the process of ensuring people have the strongest application.

And Greg or Melissa is there anything I have missed? Oh, again any questions that you have for any of the funds you can always email our grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com and our team will direct it to the right folks as well, so just making sure.

I’m just going to stop sharing my screen and see if there’s anything else. Greg, Melissa, I know you’re monitoring. Is there… Greg has told me there are no missed questions. Again if questions come up as you start looking at the guidelines our team is here, you can give them a shout and they’ll be more than happy to help you answer the questions, and I think we’re trying to keep this, we want to invest so we have a great arts sector or as strong as possible arts sector when we come out of this. Patti do you want me to just transition to Matt or do you want to introduce Matt and Kim from Stone-Olafson?

Patti Pon: Yeah I’ll do it because I also forgot something before.

Sara Bateman: Okay well then I’m going to pass it off to you. So I’m going to go back to Patti. Again if you have any other questions you can put it in the chat or reach out to my team. Thanks everyone.

Patti Pon: Thank you so much Sara and again many thanks to the community investment team. For what it’s worth usually when we design a grant program it takes us the better part of six months, and the team here has done this in less than four weeks. And 2 million dollars isn’t a small amount, so as a public agency stewarding public dollars in the interest of the public good which includes artists, by the way, for the team to be able to pull this off is a testament to their expertise and their commitment to the arts sector, so many many thanks to the team there.

I just wanted to add something, in the chatbox Kari Watson from our team very kindly put the link to our 2019 Accountability Report, so all of those stats and the numbers that I talked about are in a report that we have on our website, the link is in the chatbox, so if you want to look it up please feel free to do so. We also publish our financial statements, so if you want to look at how we divvied up the whole I think our budget last year was 12 million, just over 12 million dollars, you can see how we did that through the financial statements so please have a look on the website if you want to know more.

Mathew Stone and Kim Griffin are friends from Stone-Olafson, and they’ve been leading a longitudinal study with Albertan audiences to deliver reliable and relevant data about how Albertans are reacting to what’s happening around us. So we’ve had the great pleasure of working with Matt and Tim and Kim and the team over at their firm for a number of years and they’ve just been wonderful collaborators and sometimes co-conspirators in our work to make the case for the arts for Calgary and with Calgary. So thank you very much for joining us today and for undertaking this work and I’ll hand it over to Matt and Kim.

Mathew Stone: Right, thanks for having us Patti, I really appreciate it, everybody at the CADA team for having us at this town hall and including us here today. I’m going to share my screen, I’ve got a lot that I want to share and I look forward to, oh, looks like Zoom wants to… that worked. Great. Okay. Did that work there, did everybody see my screen or no? There we go. There we go.

Okay, well as Patti had mentioned we’ve been working on a longitudinal study and that’s research speak for the really, we’re doing a year long study with Albertans to go back to them several times over the next year to talk to them about how they engage with the experience economy and the arts in particular and sports and recreation as well over the next year. Before I jump in to the results it’s really important to say thank you to all of our sponsors, CADA in particular, Patti and Sara were the first to jump on board and really lead the way followed quickly by Simon and his team at the Rozsa Foundation, but as you look through our sponsors we appreciate their support this is we’re doing at cost but they’re also funding all the costs, so Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Travel Alberta, Edmonton Arts council, Edmonton Community Foundation, Calgary Foundation, ATB as well as support from Angus Reid and Active Cities.

These organizations are progressive and they recognize the need to support organizations that are delivering remarkable experiences to Albertans and Calgarians in particular. And we couldn’t do it without them, so thank you very very much—your leadership is most appreciated.

As Patti had mentioned, this is a longitudinal study and everything starts here. So all of the information that we’re going to present to you today is the tip of an iceberg, there’s a lot more depth available, if you want more information go to the website here, stoneolafson.com/thenewexperienceeconomy.

You can sign up, you can get reports delivered to you when they come available, detailed data as well as workshops when we’re presenting and sharing information as well as booster specific reports in Edmonton and Calgary.

The whole point to this work though is not to collect data, it’s really to support your recovery. Organizations in the experience economy in the arts and culture sector need good data about their audiences and understanding what it’s going to take to bring them back. And how to reconnect with them. The Calgary arts community, in particular, has been way out in front of most organizations. If you looked at the previous sponsors you’ll recognize that there’s a real leadership from the arts community more than anybody else for pushing it, so this is what this is about, giving you the data so that you can plan, develop your marketing and promotions, work on engagement over the longer term.

And this is going to be the first of several ways and we’re going to build on the data as we go, so that by September when we’re starting to get closer and closer to potentially hopefully reopening and reconnecting on a live basis, you can have more actionable data.

This first data is all about getting to understand where people are just we’re coming out of the first wave of restrictions. So you have an Alberta-wide report, you have boosters in Edmonton and Calgary, there’s detailed data if you want. As well if you have questions we encourage you to contact us, we’re here to help. We’ll do what we can, if you have specific questions about the data please feel free to email us and we will certainly get back to you and talk to you, do what we can to show the data.

So, with that…

Patti Pon: Matt, just a note from our ASL interpreters, you just need to slow down a little bit

Mathew Stone: Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate it, I just saw a text from Kim as well. I appreciate it. So a little bit about the research process.

This study is done across Alberta. The reason why we’ve done it in Alberta is that there are a lot of national studies out there that we’ve all seen, there’s great studies in the US as well about visitor intent to cultural institutions, and those are great, but Alberta is a unique market and the people here in Alberta have unique circumstances so it doesn’t do much good for organizations in Calgary to look at data from Toronto and we want to make sure that you have actual data about your audiences.

So this was done at the end of May at the end of the first wave of restrictions coming out. We did an online survey with 1,348 Albertans that included boosters in Edmonton and Calgary so almost 500, so you have really reliable data. Everybody’s recruited through Angus Reid Forum, for those who aren’t familiar with research, Angus Reid’s name has been around for a long time they are a leader in sample providing, so they have the best quality respondents to talk to. And then everything that we did we sampled to make sure it was balanced by region but we also did some statistical waiting to ensure that the results that you’re looking at look like the audiences you’re trying to reach. This is not the same as talking to your members or your subscribers or your ticket buyers; this is the wider Alberta audience so keep that in mind.

One other thing is before we jump to the results I think it’s really important to remember that all research, any research we do is a snapshot in time, but it doesn’t occur in a vacuum, everything around us is influencing people’s perceptions. We’re all familiar with these COVID charts and I think if anybody had asked us in February what these kinds of data would mean none of us would know, but now we’re all experts on COVID and different types of pandemic data.

This will matter to us as we’re looking at the results, and we all know that the cases were higher in Calgary and in Edmonton, less in the north and the central zone, somewhat in the south. This kind of information matters and it all has an impact on how people feel. And so as you’re looking at the data keep in mind that even the more current circumstances like weather, yes believe it or not weather, will impact how people feel about re-engaging with their community.

The other big context that is like a shadow looming over this whole situation is the economic backdrop. The circumstances in Alberta are unique, yes everybody across, around the world is having a hard time reckoning with the pandemic and with the impacts and what that means for how we engage, but in Alberta we’re facing the dual whammy of an economic recession caused by a historic crash in energy prices and while they might rebound slightly the effects of this are going to last a long time. So we know that unemployment has changed dramatically since the start of COVID 19, about 50% have seen their employment change, a large portion of that have been either laid off or had their hours cut, and we’ve seen 46% have seen their wages or income decrease.

Yes, a large portion of that is with the pandemic, 73%, but a lot of it 22% is also related to the energy prices. And what that means for arts organizations in particular and anybody in the experience economy is that expenditures on the experience economy are valuable and an important part of quality of life, but they’re also discretionary. So people’s willingness or ability to pay is going to be significantly hampered for the foreseeable future. So while we look at all this data and you think about your plans keep in mind these contexts because they’re going to influence our audiences’ ability to reconnect with us.

The whole point to this research is to start to understand the behaviours and the motivations behind them. Patti you remarked on 23,000 events and I think most people would be stunned to hear that much. When you think about it, there are tons and tons of experiences being offered to Albertans and there are different ways that people can engage with the experience economy. We look at it not just as a matter of attending, it’s also a matter with the rise of digital media, particularly during the pandemic but always for the last three or four years with the spread of media in which people can absorb content and engage with arts experiences has grown.

Even in the last civic arts engagement research we saw the rise of digital. Audiences are going to engage that way and we cannot ignore it, some of our biggest fans only engage with us in that way. They also attend, so that is a category of experiences where people are going to the theatre or going to arts events, festivals, galleries, all of it, live performances of all kinds and then finally there is the do, and when it comes to arts this is a really critical one because there are so many ways that people can engage with the arts that way, that makes a really really important part of their engagement. In some cases we see communities more likely to engage through observing and doing than they are for attending.

All of these are things that we’re watching and different ways that you can start to connect with your audience. So that’s how we looked at it for the study, and when we looked at how people are connecting about 99% of Albertans are engaged with the art experience economy in one way or another. That’s massive. If anybody’s a policymaker at the provincial level you can’t ignore that. Patti you talked about the economic impact earlier—this is all a net symptom of that. A lot of that is through doing, observing, 82% are downloading content or watching content, 89% attending in some way, shape or form, and 94% doing.

Now we’ve excluded some things like watching TV or just reading a newspaper or things like that as we’re trying to get to a more robust definition and even when we do that we see high levels of participation. And I come back to this because it’s really symptomatic about how we want to engage with the community.

Now just as important as what people are doing, probably more important, is why they’re doing it, and think about it from the context of moving forward that what people are doing is going to be different. Simple fact. The fact is that we can’t necessarily reach them with the same activities in the next year, but we can appeal to their motivations. And when we asked people why they participate by attending, social and experiential motivations are extremely important, and this is not new.

Albertans are highly motivated to connect with each other and they use the experiences in arts and culture but also in sports and recreation, festivals and events, tourism and hospitality to do that as well. So to get out of the house and socialize with friends, to be with family, to meet new people, those are all highly social things and we use our experiences as the backdrop for that.

There are also the experiential motivations—to be entertained and to have fun, to try something unique or different, be part of something exclusive. And these are all part of this and, as we look at it, these motivations become really really important for organizations looking to reconnect with Albertans. It’s not going to be a matter of offering the same things, but you can appeal to their social desires.

One other point actually I want to point out is that among their motivations, we see that 83% are social and when you see a lot of the other data out there—there’s some great data Colleen Dilenschneider is putting out, some great research in the US, about visitor intentions and people’s desire to want to do more. As much as I love that work it’s important to take that with a grain of salt because intentions are normalizing somewhat.

I think the most recent round of research has talked about that a little bit, but they might be inflated somewhat because people desire to re-engage and they want to reconnect and they’re motivated to reconnect with people in an environment where our social world has been limited for physical, social distancing reasons. But we have to temper that with their actual comfort to do it. So I may have a desire to do it and you can even ask me, say, what’s your intention to go to the Gopher Museum in Tofield. Well it’d be really high if I’ve been here cooped up in an apartment but my comfort in going to do it may not be there, so we really have to come back to that motivation and their comfort. Kim will talk a little bit more about comfort.

Their motivations for doing are similar, except we also see a rise in health and education. Experiential is really important but so is social, which remains very very important. And health motivation so it’s not just physical health but it’s also mental health. And that cannot be discounted, it’s a really important part of why people connect by doing and creating art.

Now 99% of Albertans are pursuing the experiences and if there’s one thing we’re learned over time is that in Alberta there’s not necessarily unique audiences for arts and culture only, or other things. In fact we see that 62% of Albertans will say they will participate in a festival but only 1% will do that exclusively and only festivals. And when we ask about arts and culture, 3/4 of the population will participate in one way or another, either by observing, attending or doing. But only 8% are exclusively doing arts and culture and nothing else. When we look at sports and recreation we see a little more exclusivity with 17%, but high participation rate, and the same applies to travel.

What this tells us is a couple of things. One is that there’s high overlap—the audiences that are going to be going to theatre are also going to be those that have kids in soccer. Those who might be going to galleries or taking in contemporary art are also the ones who are going to be going to a hockey game. Albertans tend to be centre agnostic and more in pursuit in broader experiences and their motivations for fulfilling that are absolutely critical. So we’re going to come back to this but one of the points is these motivations and this overlap are going to create opportunities for organizations to engage.

Kim?

Kim Griffin: Thanks Matt, I’m just muting and I see that you got it wrong with the Gopher Museum, it’s in Torrington.

Mathew Stone: Awww, I’m sorry.

Kim Griffin: Alright thanks again. So I’m going to continue this conversation and where I’d like to lead us now is that discussion on engagement and substitution and what that looks like. And the reason this becomes important is you as arts organizations are continuing to look and how you can adapt your offerings and right now still remain relevant from afar. Even as things are starting to ramp up and open up it’s important to know how your audiences feel about substitutions.

So Mathew talked about the importance of socialization and this, we really can’t overstate how important this is. This is something that Albertans are craving and some of our data starts to show that there’s a bit of a fatigue setting in with substitutes. I’m sure most of you can understand that, we’ve been at this now for a number of months and there’s only so long you can sit in front of a digital screen.

So that’s an important thing to understand. 81% of Albertans said that they value the social connections they have more than ever, so there’s that desire to reconnect. But another 72% also say that they’re getting tired of substitutes for the things that they used to do. So what that tells us is there’s that desire, to want to re-engage socially but there’s a nervousness to resume, so the combination of fatigue but hesitation means you really need to rethink how effectively you can stay connected with your audiences right now.

Matt, you can actually go ahead and forward. The other thing I just want to note is that even among regional audiences, nervousness is a bit higher among Calgarians and that goes back to what Matt said about context. We had a higher caseload at the beginning, we were slower to go into phase one so that would make sense.

Okay, so right now about half of Albertans are engaged with their usual activity in some way, shape or form. This question is trying to get a sense of what people are doing and how closely they’re connecting to their usual activities primarily through a digital lens, so we can start to understand who’s anxious to get back at it and who’s sitting back a little bit more.

The one thing I want to draw your attention to is that 37% of Albertans who up until now have been sitting back and say that they’re avoiding most of their usual activities at this time. This is a large chunk of audiences that you haven’t been reaching until now. Now at the time that we did this work many were still transitioning to work from home or perhaps taking their kids through school so there’s a bit of preoccupation there, but I think that it’s really important to note that we have a large proportion of Albertans that this whole set of circumstances has caused them to just pause and sit back, they’re not even thinking about how to engage with different organizations or activities yet.

Okay, so that’s a little bit about substitution and engagement and what I hope it does is give you some sense of how Albertans are thinking about engaging in their usual activities and how you might be able to reach them, but one of the things that’s really going to be important to understand going forward is comfort levels, this is really really critical, so I’d like to take you through a couple of things here. We’ve covered off what Albertans did, Mathew spoke to that, what they’re doing now, and how they view certain activities.

The next layer then is assessing comfort levels. Again, a lot of engaging will simply hinge on this, so broadly speaking when we ask Albertans what their perceptions are and their comfort levels are with group settings, you can see here about 25% would be quite comfortable with large groups of people, that’s really an eight, a nine or a 10 on a 10 points scale, but if we were to average this out right now Albertans are probably sitting at about a 5.5.

So right now most Albertans are just feeling comfortable with their own social groups and obviously that’s going to have implications and we’re going to need to monitor that as you start to think about how you can open doors and how comfortable people will be around others. So comfort level with people is one thing, but what about feelings? Feelings are absolutely mixed, but the one thing to note is that we’re seeing a high level of worry that’s also permeating our perceptions, and then of course that permeates anticipated behaviours or intentions to do things.

So 37% of Albertans are feeling worried right now. And when we asked this among Calgarians it’s actually a little bit higher and again context matters, higher caseloads, Calgary and Edmonton we’re obviously a little bit more dense too, so there are some factors like that, that play into this. Only 31% of Albertans are feeling optimistic, this is at the end of May, and 22% are indifferent. And what’s interesting to me is that in that indifferent category it’s a little bit higher among families or people with children, so it’s a bit of a tug and pull there I think between wanting to get out and get your kids out of the house with being a little cautious.

But it’s important to understand. We’re feeling that’s another layer to that comfort.

Okay, when we look at perceptions of Albertans we really get a sense of how complex this issue is facing Albertans and it’s simply not about offering hand sanitizer and safety protocols and just opening the doors, although I suspect everyone here knows that, but attitudes really matter. So 76% of Albertans say that no matter what happens things are not going to be the same, so there’s a sense of resignation already setting in; we know things are going to be different. 62% say they are wary about interacting with people I don’t know, and at the time of fielding that was higher in Calgary. 51% would be fine wearing a mask; a little bit higher in Calgary as well, so you start to see a bit of a tension between people being nervous, considering different things to make them feel comfortable, but what really demonstrates how complex this issue is, is a couple of statements towards the bottom.

Half of Albertans, 49% think energy prices are a more serious problem than COVID-19 and that speaks to what Mathew talked about at the beginning about discretionary spending over the long term and how that might affect Albertans; and another 43% think this thing has been blown out of proportion. So you can already see that tension between wanting to go out, wanting to resume activities, but being nervous about some of the other different things. And the other thing to note is that, and of course attitudes are really not universal, I pointed out a couple of regional differences and where Calgary stands out, but as arts organizations as you start to continue re-engagement strategies this is where it becomes really critical to understand who your audience is so you know what they’re thinking.

There are some gender differences. Those who identify as female tend to be a little more wary and less likely to think that this has been blown out of proportion. By age there are some generalizations here as well, younger adults are also a little bit more wary. I talked about Calgary, people in urban centres are a little bit more wary of crowds, but also a bit more comfortable with masks. We have a different density but we also have differences in age within our urban centres. And then for those that do frequent arts and culture events more often they are also a little less comfortable overall. So I think that will become really important as arts organizations start to think about the timeframe of how you’re going to be able to offer in-person events over the long term.

So the last thing I’ll leave you with before I turn it back to Mathew is the next question then becomes what do we need to increase comfort? Why this is important is we just want to get, again, a really complete understanding of what Albertans are thinking and where their mindset is with respect to what happens next. So 30% of Albertans, a little bit higher in Calgary, are waiting for a vaccine or a cure; 30% also see that just having reliable statistics makes them feel at ease and more comfortable going forward; but what I want to draw your attention to is that 18% at the bottom, and it might seem large, but 18% just need time to pass.

They may not be sure what they’re looking for on the comfort front, but when you combine that with the 30% who are waiting for a vaccine that’s nearly half the market that just needs to wait it out. So again, there are some implications there when you think about what that return to normal period is, and how long that might need to be drawn out or how you’re planning might have to reflect that if there’s a large swath of the provincial audience that just needs some time here, who are just not ready to go out despite again what intentions might be or what we want to do.

Mathew Stone: Thanks Kim. There are like I said there’s a ton of data there and we want to pull together a few things for you to be thinking about, some thought starters as you think about your recovery planning. The first thing that we’ve learned is obviously the experience economy is massive. 99% is a massive number and there’s a large overlap between sectors, so that means that you’re going to be sharing audiences that are actively pursuing experiences without necessarily having mass amounts of fans in any vertical sector.

So for those of you in the arts sector particularly, you have to think about how your audiences are pursuing experiences instead of a particular art form or a particular sport, and if that’s the case how can you appeal to that? That might mean that you have to broaden the promise of experience in your marketing or in your re-engagement activities or in your online activities as well.

he other thing that it raises with so much overlap and with some sports and recreation activities being open sooner than later, there might be opportunities for experience organizations to collaborate. And we’re seeing this show up again and again—because you share audiences are there ways that you can partner with organizations in completely different sectors to either share knowledge and organizational expertise or are there ways that you can start to reach into their audiences now to reconnect and then they can reach back into yours later in the year? So something to think about, look at the cross over. We think it’s a little bit strange but audiences don’t think about it in the same way.

I think it’s important also to recognize that we know that there’s sharing audiences but when it comes to sports and recreation versus arts and culture, there are some different attitudes. For arts and culture purists or hardcore audiences, the current enthusiasm levels aren’t necessarily going to translate into attendance In the short term, not only are those experiences not being offered, but we’re seeing al little more hesitancy, particularly among some of the key decision-makers.

Women and moms, people who are previous enthusiasts are clearly exhibiting more wariness to engage with crowds, so that might give you a longer runway with getting back to normal. We know lots of organizations aren’t looking until late in 2020, early 2021 to reconnect on a physical basis or on a live basis, but keep in mind your planning should reflect it. For sport and recreation we know that planning can ramp up more quickly and it will for those organizations but they’re going to have to think about different things, so they might want to be tapping into the expertise of organizations in this sector who have lots of experience reconnecting and engaging with audiences to help them reach out as well.

We talked about motivations more than activities as being key and I think the intrinsic motivations is one of the big AHAs coming out of this study, and what people will do is going to change, but why they’re there in the first place is not. And while we know that our audiences are more wary, their desire for social experiences are still very strong. That means we have to understand the motivations for the activity in the first place and then think about how your organization delivers it.

Not every organization is going to deliver social to the same degree or learning to the same degree or experiential to the same degree, so it’s never a bad thing to think about what you offer and what motivations you’re hitting on for audiences. It also means you can leverage those motivations to build substitution activities. Patti co-authored a paper with Dr. Finch that some of us participated in as well about substitution experiences and a lot of that has to do with the motivations. So you can think about that and to what degree can you facilitate the social connections people are creating right now. How do you deliver the meaning and authentic experiences people want, can you do it now and how do you do it post-pandemic? Again something to think about.

We’ve heard a lot about the substitution activities and the fact that we’re having this town hall on Zoom is a great example of a substitution activity. But Albertans are challenged to substitute experiences right now and fatigue is starting to set in as Kim has pointed out.

Not everything can be met in the same way and people are getting tired of seeing the same digital. So if we can’t meet their motivations, can we view the substitutions as more of a companion to the real thing, that can be just as much damage for organizations if they try to recreate what they offer in a digital format, instead maybe look at different ways of connecting with them instead of just offering what you do normally in a digital world. You might also look into what the capabilities are that you can leverage.

There are unique advantages of the virtual experiences that you can build around that and add value to audiences. So there are some examples we’ve seen where arts organizations have offered a digital version of what they’ve had but then also had the opportunity to connect with other members of the audience, so it meets a social while reconnecting on the experiential. So look for ways to leverage the tools to connect more deeply, not just recreate.

Perhaps the most important thing that we’re seeing in this work is that it’s the comfort level that’s going to dictate re-engagement. None of us can make a decision on when to reopen that’s a public health decision but getting audiences to come down even though we are open is going to take time and that’s based on comfort. So some are going to be hesitant to re-engage, we need to adjust their expectations on how attendance will rebound. So if we know decision-makers are more wary, we need to say things to them that are going to make them more comfortable. Your messaging doesn’t need just calm hesitation, but lend motivations; show them the safeguards that are in place because that’s table stakes. But then remind them of the motivations and the experiences that they’re going to be getting and the reasons why they love to come in the first place. So it has to be a double message.

I think the other thing is to keep in mind that the overlap of economic concern is going to be emerging for some time. I know there are reports of oil prices coming back slightly but these types of recessionary episodes take a lot longer to recover. Many studies have shown time and again when this kind of economic condition takes place that consumer spending on things that are discretionary take much longer to come back. So spending power is going to be impacted and that might impact your ability to drive them.

So you need to be thinking about pricing strategies that are going to balance value offers. Look at promotional strategies that are going to support the notion of value and exclusivity of experience, but then also recognize that in this kind of environment, consumers’ behaviours are going to shift. They’re not just more value-conscious, yes they are, but they’re also coming in with higher expectations because they’re more judicious with their spending. As a result they’re going to expect a lot more when they do spend. So they’re going to be a harder customer to please.

The less optimistic outlook, the sense of worry is something that we’re going to continue to investigate. We don’t expect that this is going to go away any time soon. There might be ways that are advantages, particularly from the experience economy and those in arts and culture that you can appeal to audiences to tap into the unarticulated motivations that come in this kind of market, and what I mean by that is you offer an opportunity to escape, even if it’s in the digital substitution of this time, but you can also offer the opportunity to comfort through the emotional benefits that come uniquely through the arts and cultural experiences.

So building and evolving the experiences that tap into that may offer organizations a unique opportunity to gain attention but also deepen the engagement, probably in ways more than they previously thought before. So as I mentioned this is the tip of the iceberg and we could probably talk about this for hours but are there questions? Things that are coming up that we would, we can share at this point in time?

Patti Pon: Thanks very much Matt, and Kim. Gregory and Melissa will be monitoring the questions, we’ve had a few come up so far. Have we had a few come up so far? I’m just looking at the questions page…

Where can we sign up to get updates from Stone-Olafson and this reporting? So as Matt and Kim were making their presentation, Greg has been adding links in the chatbox that you can click on and there’s also a subscriber button that you can sign up so as the second wave of data comes out and the subsequent waves because remember this is a longitudinal study, we’ll definitely find ways to invite Matt and Kim back to share that data, but I would really encourage you to sign up to get the data as it’s released and also to take Matt and Kim up on their offer, if you have any questions after, you know some of you may want to share this with your marketing teams if you have them, or those on your board who are helping you, and a little bit later I’ll talk about some of those partnering strategies that Matt spoke to about how we might bring together others who are also in the experience economy. Looking for more questions. Is it possible to get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that Mathew just shared? Matt that’s on your site as well, right?

Mathew Stone: Yep, if not I’ll provide it to Sara and the team as well.

Patti Pon: And we’ll put it on our, I think it’s already on our website. I could be wrong. But someone from the team will correct me in the chatbox if that’s the case. Um… just

Kim Griffin: I believe the full reports are available on our website and yours, and then Matt you’ll send this shortened version through if anyone would like to have access to it?

Matthew Stone:  Yep

Patti Pon: And then as we, we’ll share the recording of the town hall as well, so some of you may want to take that piece from Matt and Kim and share it within your organizations or with other organizations who maybe aren’t here today, so they can benefit.

I find the slides are really great on their own, but getting that additional commentary from Kim and Matt is super helpful in terms of how it might apply to you and how you can use it in your organization, that was one of the things that we asked of Stone-Olafson at the time, the survey was being designed we had to be able to find a way for all of you to use it. And then if there are any data nerds out there, Greg notwithstanding, the actual tables themselves are open source, so if you have the ability and you want to look at the data more explicitly you can actually go and look into those tables as well.

Mathew Stone: Patti if I can add, it’s a lot to absorb I know, so if people have questions later on please feel free to email us, our contact information is on the page, or the CADA team will put us in touch. We’ll do what we can to help, we want to see you thrive and recover.

Patti Pon: Thank you, Matt and Kim there’s a question here. Considering discretionary spending is an issue, do you think making events free for the public will bring more people to arts events?

Matthew Stone: Great question, we get that a lot and not just in the current time. Free only takes you so far, it helps because of discretionary spending but it’s not going to be the silver bullet, and that’s because free doesn’t match up with their primary motivation of social, it helps over the long term organizations tend to suffer if they offer lean on free because of the financial implications and the expectation that comes with free that’s different than the promise of an experience. So it will help, but I don’t think that it’s going to be as beneficial as emphasizing the benefits of engaging in the first place which may be social or experiential depending on the offer.

Kim Griffin: Could I add to that Matt? Yeah I’d like to.

The one thing I will say and this is tipping our hat to future waves; this is something that we think we’ll be exploring we’re starting to explore in wave 2 and we’ll continue to explore in future waves as it becomes really something at the forefront. Understanding how spending will shift, where people are willing to put their money, how they’re willing to spend, where they’re willing to go, all those sorts of questions. And the one thing that is just niggling at the back of our minds for down the road is that we also don’t want organizations to leave money on the table.

So certainly there’s going to have to be a value aspect, I think, that organizations will have to be mindful of, but if there are audiences and their comfort level is at a place where they’re willing to visit you or go to somewhere, you don’t want to leave money on the table when there might be something that you can gain from that. So I don’t have the answer of what that looks like, it’s just to say I don’t know if it is free or full price and I think we’ll be looking to explore that in more detail in the coming months so just kind of keep your eye out for that.

Patti Pon: Thanks very much Kim. Those are all of the questions that I see from the chat that the team has collected, so again we still have just about a half an hour to go so if something occurs to you and you want to ask it please let us know and we’ll be sure to have Matt or Kim address that.

So the next piece that I just wanted to update you on is other things that are happening with Calgary Arts Development as we move ahead into the rest of 2020 and the things that are rising to the surface and a lot of it is related to the very conversations that we’ve been sharing with you today. One thing in particular, and it was something that really rang very true to me with the findings that Matt and Kim identify, were really just around these opportunities to partner up, to think about working outside of the arts sector but really thinking about the experience economy as a broader idea and you know the paper that Dr. Finch invited me to participate on starts to introduce what this whole idea of an experience economy is. I’ll preface it right now it’s a bit heavier on the academic side, but when you partner it up with the research that Matt and Kim have prepared I think it starts to give some context for how I believe the arts are such a significant part of that and really truly could pave the way for the longer term recovery for Calgary’s community from an economic perspective among others.

In that same spirit as we thought about the design of the Emergency Resiliency Fund programs, we were also mindful that we have a number of partners and collaborators and allies working with us who are just as concerned as we are around how we facilitate and build and strengthen the arts sector in light of the times and one of those close partners is Simon Mallett and the team from the Rozsa Foundation.

And so I thought I’d invite Simon just to spend a few minutes sharing with you some of the things that the Rozsa Foundation is doing where we’re trying to really leverage the programs that we’re running and not step on each other’s toes. So Simon can I call on you to turn your mic on and share with us a little bit about what up?

Simon Mallett: For sure thanks Patti. So for those of you on the call who are not familiar with the Rozsa Foundation, we are a private foundation that supports the arts in Alberta. We support transformational leadership in the arts and we do that in a number of ways.

We have a granting program for Calgary and area charitable arts organizations. We have a suite of three arts leadership programs that focus on sort of the business capacity in the arts, then we have the Rozsa Awards, one for excellence in arts management and one for excellence in board leadership which unfortunately due to COVID have been cancelled for this year but we look forward to welcoming the community and celebrating some great stories of resilience and overcoming adversity next year for sure.

And so one of the things that we’ve been doing as this situation has been evolving is trying to get information into the hands of arts organizations as it sort of comes at useful times. So the first one of these that we did was around remote working and tips for working from home as a lot of arts organizations made that shift. We did one around the various funding supports available to Alberta-based artists and arts organizations and then more recently we did one on monetizing online arts content, very much to speak to the question of whether or not we should be giving away for free or in fact what are some strategies and tactics around attempting to monetize the art that is being delivered. All of that information is on our website at rozsafoundation.org. I’ll put that in the chat, but it’s rozsafoundation.org.

And so now we’re sort of looking forward and because we sort of live at this intersection of business and the arts we do a lot of work around capacity building, around looking at organizational models, looking at new pathways for adaptive capacity, how organizations can make themselves stronger in the long term. And so our next session is very much looking at the kinds of things that Patti, Sara and the CADA team are looking at supporting in the second phase of their emergency support funding, which is around that resiliency piece, which is around what opportunities might we want to see, how might we form partnerships either between arts organizations or between arts organizations and organizations from other sectors, what might a merger look like if that is a way to go, but there are a variety of different models.

We do, you know, I think we know that things are going to look different as we come out of the COVID situation than they did before the COVID situation and that adaptive capacity, that ability for organizations to adapt and find productive ways forward is going to be central to that. And so closer to the opening of that second wave which is August 10th I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re going to be looking at putting together an information session. We don’t know exactly what that’s going to be because part of what we want to do is hear from arts organizations around what questions are you facing, what possibilities are you looking at, what information do you need and then let us help you, let us try and find folks who can speak to that, speak from their experience, speak tactically about logistics that might be involved, in order to better position organizations to be able to apply for some of this funding that CADA has been made available.

I’m very excited for the approach that CADA has taken because I do think that it gives arts organizations a great opportunity to make lemonade, I suppose, and lemonade, I really love lemonade, but to take, you know, a situation that is less than ideal in many ways but to forge a new future, to see what might be possible on the other side. It’s been great to work with CADA as well as our friends at Calgary Foundation throughout this on funding approaches, on a lot of strategy, a lot of conversations. CADA’s been a real leader in terms of sort of pulling funders together to have conversations about how we can come together and work together to support you. So if you have thoughts, questions, perspectives that you’d like to talk about, to share, please get in touch with me personally, my email is simon@rozsafoundation.org, again I’ll put that in the chat. But reach out to me, let us know what you’re thinking about, it will help us to sort of design this to meet the needs of arts organizations that much more fully. One last point, Patti made a comment earlier about data nerds. I like to think of folks as data connoisseurs, Patti, there’s a certain palette that processes it in beautiful ways. Anyway thanks for the time.

Patti Pon: Thanks very much Simon. Aficionados, I guess, would be a good term. I also noted here on the call that our friend Brigitte von Rothemburg from Calgary Foundation is here and we work very very closely with Calgary Foundation and are very proud of our relationship. Brigitte has a tiny bit of an update as well, so over to you Brigitte.

Brigitte von Rothemburg: Thanks Patti! So we’re, right now over the summertime our grants team is working on the next phase of grant of our pandemic recovery program, but in sort of tandem with that we are reopening our strategic opportunity granting program, hopefully for the month of August so I just wanted to get the word out there.

We’re going to be tweaking the guidelines to be more mindful of our current context so if anyone would like to have a chat, you can reach me at grants@calgaryfoundation.org, or you can reach me on my phone at 403.802.7724. I’d be happy to have a chat with anyone. Thanks.

Patti Pon: Thanks so much Brigitte—maybe if you could type that contact info into the chatbox and then people have it that would be awesome…

Brigitte von Rothemburg: Got it!

Patti Pon: And apparently we’ve got shirt orders for Data Connoisseur, so I smell a social enterprise happening there guys, you go for it! Okay so we’re just going to use a little bit of our, well, the rest of our remaining time, about 20 minutes, but hopefully, we finish a bit sooner, I know these calls can be long when they get past 90 minutes.

Just some other opportunities that might be coming up for you that I’d invite you to think about and if you want more information it’s on our Calgary Arts Development website; all of our contact info is there, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions. You heard me mention earlier that we’ve been undertaking and hosting some anti-racism virtual town halls. We have committed to holding more town halls every other Wednesday in July and August, so the next one will be next Wednesday which I think is the 15, and you can go to our website to register for those town halls, and also we have the recordings and transcripts of our previous two town halls that have already taken place, and you’re invited to review those.

The purpose of these town halls is really a bit of an exchange and to listen to the thoughts and the feelings and the concerns that are being raised by many artists, many of whom are BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, as well as AWD, artists with disabilities. These are stories that sometimes we don’t hear as a funder, and we do need to hear. And in ways that are more than what is on the grapevine. And the town hall for me has been a wonderful way to really start to hear and better understand what it means for an arts sector that looks like Calgary, Canada’s third most diverse city in Canada, and so the conversations have just been sometimes uncomfortable, deeply fulfilling, a wonderful learning, and I hope a safe space and a brave space where people can bring up some questions and thoughts.

So those are every other Wednesday for the next two months starting next week.

Related to that, we committed in those sessions to create an external EDIA working group, and this is to help us figure out how we might change our systems to better accommodate what it is to have the variety of amazing arts that our community has to offer, when it looks like our city. And so we’re going to put a call out for nominations and so stay tuned on our website if you have interest or you know of people who might be great members of that working committee. For those who are not employed by an organization where this might be part of their work already we will compensate you as a member of the working committee. We want to value the expertise and the lived experience that individual will bring and share with us and teach us. So stay tuned for that.

Related more directly to the work that you heard from Stone-Olafson today, Calgary Arts Development has been meeting with a number of arts champions in our community and from a number of different places inside and outside of the arts, to work on something called RISE UP Calgary, and RISE UP Calgary again is an open-source campaign to accelerate the arts sector’s recovery, the economic recovery in Calgary. And it’s using the data and the research that we discovered, what we’re learning about an experience economy and how the arts fit into that, and really wanting to use RISE UP Calgary as an opportunity to create awareness for Calgarians that the arts are here, and that as I said earlier, Calgarians have been leaning on the arts a lot since March, and even before.

And we want to keep that presence, that acknowledgement alive regardless of whether there’s COVID-19. And we hope that the RISE UP Calgary campaign might be a way to do that. Now it’s more than just marketing and promotions, so here’s the pitch: as you think about the Resiliency Fund application you might want to put in, or you’re talking with your colleagues in arts and culture, or in sport and recreation, or in hospitality, what are those amazing experiences that you could afford or provide to Calgarians right now? And so one initiative that will take place under the RISE UP Calgary banner are the Rise Up Experience Packages.

We’ve approached some of Calgary’s hotels who are opening up partially to offer deep discounts, put that together with a fantastic arts experience, and then add on a little bit of Calgary’s local food scene to create a wonderful kind of stay-cation package for Calgarians and those around us to take part in. And so Kaley Beisiegel who you heard about earlier is going to be our queen of matching people together and experiences together. And if you are interested stay tuned on our website again and we’ll put something in our newsletter, we’re going to get going pretty quick here on how we can put these packages together. Similar to that, colleague Graham Edge from Energy Disrupters is initiating an event called YYC Staycay.

So YYC Staycay is a 29-day scavenger hunt for uniquely YYC experiences. And for sure arts and culture is a part of that. So the trick to this one is the 29-day period starts on July 24th, which is 16 days from now. And by the way, Graham started this idea 10 days ago, when he was part of a Bounce Back YYC Hackathon that CADA also participated in, where a group of three students identified this idea of a local scavenger hunt as a means of contributing building Calgarians’ comfort in this time as we come out of COVID-19. Again for those of you who might have a really awesome idea for how you could be one of the scavenger sites, or maybe you want to share this information with your own community so they have an experience they can take part in, we’ll have more information on our website, we have a rough draft of a slide deck that Graham has shared, he’s got some changes to it but I think it’s a really, again, wonderful way to show how the arts can lead in building a great city again for all of us.

So that’s my pitch for RISE UP, there’ll be a number of other activities that will come up. When I talk about open source, that means if you want to be part of RISE UP Calgary and you’ve got something to bring to the table, then you can be a part of RISE UP Calgary. This is entirely something we want to build from the grassroots.

Above and beyond that, always happy to promote and share your events both online and offline, your job postings, notices of workshops, any kind of events listing, we can, we’d love to share that information with the broader community. So I think maybe Nick is going to put, there you go look at that he’s putting the link right in the chatbox right there, so you can make your submissions to the various listings at those links. We’ve also resumed our weekly newsletter, so always wanting to share amazing stories about the arts and that is a good segue to the last thing I wanted to share with you of initiatives that we’re undertaking.

You’ve likely heard me talk a lot about what living a creative life, that our city-wide arts strategy is called Living a Creative Life, launched in 2014, and really at its heart is how can we create the conditions in Calgary where Calgarians can live their most creative lives with arts and artists at the centre of those conditions. And so in that ongoing mission to create those conditions, I’m so pleased to announce that today we are launching our first webisode of Living a Creative Life and it’s about how Calgarians have leaned on the arts during the pandemic and beyond and how we can share stories of our most creative Calgarians of which there are thousands. We want to share those stories and I believe we have a tiny little promo teaser so Helen, can I hand it over to you to hit play on that teaser?

There’s no sound. And there’s me with moving hands. Maybe it’s…

Helen Moore-Parkhouse: Sorry there’s no sound I guess. Can you hear it now?

Patti Pon: But now we can’t see it.

Helen Moore-Parkhouse: Do you want me to try it again?

Patti Pon: Would you mind and we’ll see if it works and if it doesn’t then we’ll just move on.

Helen Moore-Parkhouse: I don’t mind!

Patti Pon: Okay, well so you saw it first, and then you heard it, but our web series will put both together and it will be a beautiful beautiful thing, it was just such a joy. Nick has put the link to the teaser trailer for our new web series, Living a Creative Life, so you can have a look there. I’m sure every single one of you on this call has a story of a creative Calgarian and it might be you or it might be someone that you know, and we would love to hear about it. And Adora who is our host is just a wonderful wonderful Calgarian and I’m just so thrilled that she’ll be able to share these stories with everybody. Someone from the team can you remind me about how people might access the web series, the first episode on its launch given that it’s today?

Look at that! Thanks Nick! The first episode of Living a Creative Life, the link is in the chatbox, again you can go to our website at Calgary Arts Development and we’ll, uh, sorry, I just got caught up with the chatbox, the episodes there at the link that you’ve chosen, Cherie has put the contact info submit your stories to submissions@calgaryartsdevleopment.com. Landon, we’re working on ensuring that captioning appears throughout the episode, for this first one we just did it for Canvas, the artist, but we are looking to ensure that we have captioning included for all of the future episodes, so thank you for that note.

Okay! Eight minutes to spare unless anybody has any more questions or comments that you want to share, I’m going to check on our handy dandy google doc to be sure I haven’t missed anything… don’t think I have. Oh, Landon, captioning is available for the full episode, just not in the trailer. So there you go.

I’m just scanning quickly through the chatbox, I think those are all the comments and questions that we’ve had, once again many many thanks to our guests Mathew Stone and Kim Griffin, Sara and her team in community investment, Melissa and Taylor and Sable and Marta and Alisha and Kaley thank you so much. Brigitte and Simon thank you for letting me put you on the spot, and sharing information updates from our other partners.

There’s just, as hard as this year has been, it would have been 100x harder without the partnership of all those people I just spoke about and thanked, so thank you very much to all of you and then of course we’re only here because you’re here, because you make up the arts community. There’s no reason to have a CADA if there isn’t an arts community here to build and contribute to building an amazing city for all of us, so many thanks to all of you for taking this time and for spending and taking two hours of your day on Zoom with us.

So until next time we’ll have more updates. August will be the second wave of the research in the meantime our next anti-racism virtual town hall will be next Wednesday, so thanks again everybody and we will see you soon. Bye!

00:21:39 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): Hello everyone, as you join, you will see that we have 2 ASL Interpreters, ‘ASL Interpreter Janice’ and ‘ASL Interpreter Kimberley’. Janice will begin the interpretation if you wish to pin her video.

00:21:50 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): We will ask that if you are not speaking, please turn your video off.

00:22:10 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): You can hide ‘Non Video Participants’ by clicking the 3 dot menu on your screen

00:22:19 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): This will keep the interpreter and the speaker on your screen

00:23:09 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): Please message myself or Marc Lavallee if you have any technical or accessibility issues

00:59:06 Philothea: Can the money received only be used for new endeavours related to covid? What is use restricted to?

01:00:44 CADA Kari Watson (she/her): A link to our 2019 Accountability & Impact Report can be found here: https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/publications/accountability-impact-report-2019/

01:01:44 Greg Burbidge: Hi Philothea! Thanks for the question. I’ve made a note so we can answer it

01:01:53 Amber Teskey: Do you chose phase one or two to apply to, or can organizations apply to both?

01:02:09 Jung-Suk Ryu: Can an organization apply to both funds?

01:02:20 Jung-Suk Ryu: Thanks Sara.

01:02:26 Amber Teskey: Thank you.

01:02:41 Jason Mehmel: What is the best way to book time with CADA to discuss application ideas

01:05:16 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): alisha.gordon@calgaryartsdevelopment.com

01:05:29 CADA Melissa Tuplin (She/Her): grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com

01:07:40 Cathy Billington (she/her): MRU: thanks for the update, Sara

01:07:53 Beth Kane: Thank you

01:13:59 Ebony Gooden: Thank you <3

01:21:14 Greg Burbidge: Hi Everyone! To read the Alberta, Calgary, or Edmonton specific reports scroll down and click the appropriate link under “This is a Community Resource”: https://www.stone-olafson.com/thenewexperienceeconomy

01:21:45 Greg Burbidge: If you’d like to sign up to get updates on this research, sign up here: https://www.stone-olafson.com/the-new-experience-economy-contact

01:22:42 CADA Patti Pon: Ummmmm no gopher museum in Tofield…they have the railway cafe with rail cars as hotel rooms with hot tubs!!! TORRINGTON is where ya’ gotta go for gophers

01:22:47 CADA Patti Pon: No really!!!!

01:24:27 Greg Burbidge: But we’d all like it if more communities had Gopher Museums.

01:24:39 CADA Patti Pon: Well that’s just a given….

01:24:56 CADA Patti Pon: mind you the gophers might have a problem with that

01:35:54 Landon Krentz: Where are the interpreters?

01:37:04 ASL Interpreter Janice: Landon, please change your Zoom view to Gallery and you will see the interpreters.

01:37:18 Cathy Billington (she/her) – MRU and Luminous Voices: does anyone have the link to that paper? Did I hear right it was authored by Patti and Dr. Finch?

01:37:27 Landon Krentz: Got it thanks JC

01:37:39 ASL Interpreter Janice: Glad to help.

01:37:43 Greg Burbidge: To read the Alberta, Calgary, or Edmonton specific reports scroll down and click the appropriate link under “This is a Community Resource”: https://www.stone-olafson.com/thenewexperienceeconomy

01:38:14 CADA Patti Pon: Cathy this is where you can find the paper that I worked on with MRY

01:38:16 CADA Patti Pon: MRU

01:38:42 CADA Patti Pon: Referring to link from Greg

01:38:45 Greg Burbidge: This is where you can check out the discussion paper (bottom of the page): https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/publications/future-of-calgarys-live-experience-economy/

01:40:01 Kim Griffin: Thank you Greg. For those trying to access the paper through our Stone-Olafson website, it looks like it is not loading so we will get that fixed asap!

01:40:42 Greg Burbidge: We’ve had a hard time accessing the paper if using a safari web browser, but downloading this was great in other browsers.

01:42:09 Cherie McMaster: is it possible to get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that mathew just shared?

01:42:15 Greg Burbidge: If you’d like to sign up to get updates on this research, sign up here: https://www.stone-olafson.com/the-new-experience-economy-contact

01:42:38 CADA Nick Heazell (Him/He): When we post a review of this town hall we’ll include all the links also.

01:43:10 Cherie McMaster: thank you!

01:44:31 Peita Luti: Thanks Mat, Kim and the Stone-Olafson team!

01:44:49 Greg Burbidge: CADA loves open data based research!

01:47:56 Mathew Stone: thank you everyone! Appreciate the opportunity to share what we’re hearing from Albertans!

01:52:59 ASL – Ebony Gooden (her/she): Have to head out but thank you everyone for this meeting and for giving updates with interpreters (Thanks JC and Kimberley)

01:53:11 CADA Patti Pon: Thanks Ebony!

01:55:25 Simon Mallett (he/him) Rozsa Foundation: rozsafoundation.org
simon@rozsafoundation.org

01:55:26 Greg Burbidge: Yes to “Data Connoisseurs!” Will order us up some shirts and name tags

01:56:18 Mathew Stone: i’m in. can I order one too? 🙂

01:57:11 Brigitte von Rothemburg: Brigitte from Calgary Foundation: grants@calgaryfoundation.org or 403.802.7724

01:57:25 Mathew Stone: If anyone is interested, the next wave of work with Albertans is going into field this week and results will be available in late August.

01:57:48 Greg Burbidge: Absolutely Matt!!!

01:58:00 CADA Nick Heazell (Him/He): Here was the latest: https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/announcements/july-anti-racism-virtual-town-hall/

02:01:43 CADA Kari Watson (she/her): You can sign up for the upcoming anti-racism town halls here: https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/announcements/anti-racism-virtual-town-halls/

02:05:24 CADA Nick Heazell (Him/He): You can post your job, education, fundraising opportunities and more on our free Classifieds:
https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/classified-form/

02:05:29 CADA Kari Watson (she/her): The submission form for events listings is here! https://yycwhatson.ca/

02:08:07 Cherie McMaster: Try sharing your screen Helen…

02:08:32 CADA Nick Heazell (Him/He): Check out our teaser trailer for our new web series Living a Creative Life visit https://cada.at/3gK5w5P

02:08:50 CADA Helen (she/her): Sorry that didn’t work!

02:09:21 CADA Nick Heazell (Him/He): The first episode of Living a Creative Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0IzgTzOzu4

02:09:28 Landon Krentz: Just watched the link, why did the captioning stop in the middle of it?

02:09:37 Cherie McMaster: AND submit your stories to submissions@calgaryartsdevelopment.com

02:10:22 Cherie McMaster: Landon-captioning is available for the full episode but not in the trailer

02:11:31 Allison Moore: Thanks to the team for all that you do!

The New Experience Economy: The Intersection of Arts, Culture, Sports & Recreation in a Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Environment Research Outcomes: Wave 1 Results:
https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-New-Experience-Economy-Wave-1-Presentation-CADA.pdf

Accountability & Impact Report:
https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/publications/accountability-impact-report-2019/

Sign up for the New Experience Economy:
https://www.stone-olafson.com/the-new-experience-economy-contact

To read the Alberta, Calgary, or Edmonton New Experience Economy reports scroll down and click the appropriate link under This is a Community Resource:
https://www.stone-olafson.com/thenewexperienceeconomy

Watch the latest Anti-Racism Town Hall:
https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/announcements/july-anti-racism-virtual-town-hall/

You can sign up for the upcoming Anti-Racism Town Halls here:
https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/announcements/anti-racism-virtual-town-halls/

You can post your job, education, fundraising opportunities and more on our free Classifieds:
https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/classified-form/

The submission form for What’s On event listings:
https://yycwhatson.ca/

Living a Creative Life teaser video:

The first episode of Living A Creative Life Web Series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0IzgTzOzu4

Submit your stories to the Living A Creative Life #yycLCL webseries by email at:
submissions@calgaryartsdevelopment.com

To email The Calgary Foundation use:
grants@calgaryfoundation.org