2014 Annual Meeting

On October 20, 2014, the Cultural Alliance held its Annual Member Meeting & Reception at The Franklin Institute. 650 guests attended as the Alliance presented its 2014 Portfolio research, and publicly announced Maud Lyon as the new Alliance President. She began work at the Alliance in January.

Grantmaking

The Cultural Alliance is the regional partner agency of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, working with the PCA to evaluate proposals and distribute grant awards for projects or programs involving artists throughout Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties.

Professional Development

Our professional development programs are some of our most popular events, designed to  help professionals in our sector stay on top of best practices and latest trends.

In March 2015 our “Plugging In: Marketing in the Digital Age” workshop featured a presentation by Erik Gensler, President of Capacity Interactive. The event also featured a resource fair with affiliates of our Creative Industry Network, our new network of businesses who offer graphic design, web development, human resources, consulting services and more for creative non-profits.  In June, the Alliance partnered with the Association of Fundraising Professionals to present Susan Nelson of TDC, discussing the need for different kinds of capital to sustain cultural organizations.  Smaller workshops were held throughout the year on a number of topics.

Techniculture

The Alliance participated in Philly Tech Week for the first time with our sold-out TechniCulture event in April 2015, which brought together the arts & culture and tech communities to feature innovative uses of technology to create art and to support the work of cultural organizations, sparking many ideas for future collaborations between our two sectors.

In June 2015, to translate ideas into action, we  announced the TechniCulture Innovation Residency Awards program, a process to help three organizations to evaluate their digital needs and develop  technology solutions.  The result will be featured at TechniCulture 2016.

Custom Consulting for Member Organizations

With support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Alliance has developed a proprietary mapping program that can produce audience and organizational analysis for individual organizations. Using mapping software and multiple cultural and civic datasets (including CDP, Audience Data from Audience Analytics, Phillyfunguide, Culture Blocks and the census), the Alliance can map out cultural organizations’ audiences, market penetration, and competitive position, to help individual organization planning and decision-making for programming and marketing.