Inside the Arts Council

This is the first in a series of posts that will come to you live from our bi-weekly staff meetings! A true look inside the Arts Council. Let us know your thoughts!

Advocacy / Culture Policy
- Ryan will be sending out more information about the Pittsburgh Opinion Exchange project (check out the “widget” on our homepage) and how the arts and culture sector can get involved.
- The latest news on the Port Authority is a shutdown could happen in December. The Arts Council will continue to monitor the situation.
- A huge voter turnout is expected for the election. Everyone VOTE!!
- The health coverage program will have a second enrollment period starting November 17 with a December 15 deadline for coverage that will begin in January.
- Mitch attended a meeting about the impact of the economic crisis. The information was sobering to say the least. We highly recommend several programs that are coming up for the nonprofit sector:
Dewey and Kaye Program
Bayer Center Programs

Arts Programs
Professional Development:
- Lots of great upcoming events. Because we have so much going on, we struggle to limit the amount of emails we send out. Do you feel like we flood your inbox? Do you find the information we send valuable? Let us know!
- Monday night was the Creative Conversation event. We're all in agreement - it rocked! Check out some pictures here.

Consulting:
- David shared, "Ladies & Gents, we have an Arts & Law Committee!" Yesterday, after a presentation by one of the Arts Council’s long-time VLAs, the Allegheny Bar Association voted to reinstate this committee. David will likely serve as an ex offico member of the committee in order to connect the committee directly to our VLA program. Exciting stuff!
- Last night Leadership Pittsburgh in partnership with Allegheny Conference and the Arts Council hosted an event called Champions Connections. It was designed to help us reach members of the business community, help them think more about the many many benefits of our region's arts and culture community and to get them involved with our BVA program. Mitch Swain is in the current Leadership Pittsburgh “class” and has already been able to make some valuable connections with business and community leaders

Grantmaking:
- The Arts Council received more applications than expected for the new BNY Mellon Audience Development Grant and will conduct the review in two stages.
- Pictures and follow-up information about the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts awards ceremony will be posted here by the end of the week.


Marketing / Ticketing
- Maggie attended a Visit Pittsburgh coop advertising meeting this morning and is working with that organization to identify more opportunities for the arts community.
- Arts Council will be starting a rebranding process. We are very excited about this!!

[A brief exchange about second floor staff vs. third floor staff (and how third "floorers" are generally better all around) ensued and almost resulted in several black eyes. Luckily, peace was quickly found.]

- Tanaz is currently interviewing candidates for the full-time ticketing associate position
- It's past time for us all to get our articles and information ready for the monthly Update newsletter! Hop to it, people!

Membership / Development
- We currently have 137 organization/business members and 53 individual artist members and growing all the time.
- We’ve been conducting final interviews for the Development and Membership Coordinator position.
- Lots of half-price offers have been coming in! Are you on our list? If you have not been receiving weekly half-price offers and you are a member, let Tiffany know! (twilhelm[at]pittsburghartscouncil[dot]org)

Office of Public Art
- The Public Art Manager position for the City of Pittsburgh as been posted! Hooray!
- A Public Art 101 workshop will be held this Saturday
- Lea and Renee are working on various technical assistance projects
- The updated downtown walking tour booklet has arrived!

Work of Art Awards
- Tiffany is working on simplifying and streamlining the nomination form. The form will be available on our website in mid November.