Monthly Archives: April 2014

We’re appreciated, valued and thought highly of

by Jini Stolk The results of Bringing the City Alive, a recent Leger survey done on behalf of the Toronto Arts Foundation, weren’t surprising – but they definitely boosted my spirits. The good news included the information that three-quarters of GTA residents agree that the arts provide important benefits to the city such as attracting […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Creating fundraising savvy boards

by Cynthia Armour The difficulty of encouraging…persuading…motivating a board to fundraise is possibly the arts manager’s most frequent lament. I am delighted to offer this illuminating guest blog by one of Canada’s most experienced fundraisers, who has years of success in overcoming this and other fundraising challenges. The Arts Managers’ Lament is not a lonely […]

Posted in Fundraising | Leave a comment

People Management or HR by another name

by Jini Stolk Whatever happened to the age-old tradition of training your own staff? According to a quick search on Google, the various manpower agencies hiring and placing temporary foreign workers in Canada are responding to a need by employers for a reliable workforce, with workers who are loyal and committed, and even exceed the […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Good governance: the poem

by Jini Stolk Which is more surprising? That someone wrote a poem about good governance or that it’s so delightful? The someone is George Elliott Clarke, Toronto’s Poet Laureate (a good to have), and the poem is Principles of Good Governance, which I’ve been rereading and thinking about since it appeared in the Toronto Star […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Feedback

by Jini Stolk A lot of readers commented on “If working in a nonprofit means you’ll never earn a living…” indicating, I believe, that I touched on the elephant in the room of arts employment. I was reminded that the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres instituted a shared contribution pension plan for theatre professionals many years […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hiring highly effective people

by Jini Stolk There are a number of important jobs waiting to be filled in our community, so I thought I would provide some new perspectives on the crucial task of making the right hire. Richard Branson, founder of all things Virgin and a guy who’s done his fair share of hiring, says that when […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s always the art

by Jini Stolk I recently wrote about The Theatre Centre’s opening without mentioning the word art. It was deliberate: my piece was about the community impact of arts spaces and I wanted to focus on neighbourhood animation, cultural venues as the primary public meeting spaces of our time, and the craft of fundraising. But then […]

Posted in Audience Development | 1 Response

How fun was that?

by Jini Stolk I had no idea how joyful the process of dancing with Toronto Dance Theatre would be. We were warmly welcomed, beautifully cared for by everyone in the company, and invited to explore the power of our imaginations – and it quickly became clear that we were going to be truly dancing, learning […]

Posted in Audience Development | Leave a comment