Memo- Report for July 31, 2006Hopkins Center
For the Arts, Inc.
Memorandum
August 4, 2006
TO: Hopkins City Council
FROM: Hopkins Center for the Arts, Inc.
RE: Report for July 31, 2006
Attached is a summary report of third and fourth quarters (January 1-
June 3 0, 2006) for the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Inc.
Wayne Olson (president), Chris Tower (secretary) and Susan Hanna-
Bibus (staff) will attend the Council meeting on August 8 to give our
annual year-end report. The key areas we will review are:
• progress made on financial challenge discussed at last year's
meeting
• what we have done differently this year to move towards
financial stability
• what we are doing to build our human resources
• how we plan to meet the challenge of increasing public
awareness of what we do
Thank you for this opportunity.
Susan Hanna-Bibus
Executive Arts Director
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Inc.
at the center
REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
HOPKINS CENTER FOR THE ARTS, INC.
THIRD & FOURTH QUARTER, 05-06
(January 1-June 30, 2006)
KEY GROWTH INDICATORS
02-03 03-04 04-05 05-06
# Individual Members 383 373 393 441
# Business Members 21 28 26 24
#Grants------------------------ ----------- 4
------
-- ....------- ~
-- ------ -
- ------------- 4
------
-- 1
---------------
#Sponsorships---------------- ----------- 4------ -- ------------- 6------ -- ------------- $------ -- ------------11
# Concert Subscriptions______ _________159______ __ __________ 235______ __ __________ 217______ __ __________ 250
# On Mailing List,-------------- ------ 7 400
L.......... _
. ________ 81809______ __ ----____ 91501-_--_- -- ------__ 9L600
CONCERT ATTENDANCE
# Evenfs # Tkts. Sold
2000-01---------------------- -------------- 6 .....21358------
2001-02---------------------- -------------- 9- --------- 21735------
2002-03 _-___10_ _________31394______
2003-04---------------------- ------------- ~ ~------ - --------- 31569_-----
2004/05---------------------- -------------- 9------ - --------- 21433------
2005106 ---------- -------------- 9 --------- 3L639------
2006/07 (to date)----------- -------------~-~ - ---------11198------
Ave. # Tkts. Sold Tofal Attend. Ave. Attend.
------------ 337------ - ---------21358------ ------------ 337
------------ 304------ - --------- 21735...... ------------ 304
------------ 339------ - --------- 31694_----- ------------ 369
------------357------ - ---------41437------ -----.._....444
------------ 270------ - --------- 21892------ ...----.....321
------------ 404------ - ---------4357------ ------------ 473
-------------109------ -- -------------------- --------------
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
02-03 03-04 04-05 05-06
Concert Attendance.___________ _____ 31694______ __ ________ 41437______ __ ________ 21892______ __ ________ 4357
Film Attendance
---------------- 666
------------------
-- 786
---------------------
-- 639
---------------------
-- 217
---------------
Edge Attendance--------------- ---------40------ -- ---------- 268------ -- ---------- 380------ -- ---------- 215
Exhibition Receptions Att..
---- 1 925
-------1---"------ _
- ________ 21045______ _
- 2 595
----------1----'-----
-- 2 550
----------L-
Fundraisers Att. 78 103 0 300
PROGRAMMING
This spring we presented the first two concerts developed especially for us. "Songs from the Stage" was created
by pianist/accordianist/organist Dan Chouinard from an idea by former Board member Donna Leviton and Susan
Hanna-Bibus. It featured highlights from the worlds of Broadway and opera as performed by jazz vocalist Pru-
denceJohnson and opera talents Vern Sutton and Maria Jette. The second original show came from an idea pro-
posed by former Board member Jim Shirley. It was "Sax Summit' which presented seven premiere jazz sax play-
ers together for the first time, backed by the Laura Caviani Trio. The show also included two world premieres of
new pieces for jazz sax. It was wonderful to end the concert season on an exciting note after the rocky start to the
season. The Chicago Blues Reunion (who were to open the season) pulled out of their tour resulting in our con-
certseason starting a month late. We had disappointing attendance for our film and Edge events this year -
largelydue to the lack of focus on marketing these programs this year. We are revising the film series for next
year, adding live music components and refreshments. During spring, we finalized our concert and film series for
2006-07 and began selling season tickets for the upcoming season.
This season our visual arts program also had some firsts. In October-November, our lobby was decorated with
large-scale prints and raspberries in our first site-specific installation. In May we had our first design show, pre-
senting capstone projects by graduate students in the landscape design program of the University of Minnesota.
In June, our first sculpture show opened. While we have presented a few sculptural works in conjunction with
other shows, this was our first show specifically focusing on sculpture. Exhibitions continue to be well-attended.
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
The focus this year was on raising the money needed to eliminate the deficit from last fiscal year. Board and staff
successfully raised $30,000 to this end. Then, we set out to raise another $30,000 to support the 05/06 season and
raised $19,410 towards this goal. In the end, we missed balancing our FYE06 budget by a little over $5,000. While
we still have some work to do to achieve financial stability, we are in a much better position than last year. The
good news for the coming year is that both ticket sales and art sales for FYE07 are ahead of pace. The bad news is
that the constant strain of emergency fundraising took its toll on all concerned and contributed to resignations from
the Board. So, one of the priorities this summer is to recruit new board members.
We took a couple of other steps this spring to move forward. The first was a Board retreat to talk about issues such
as increasing public awareness of our organization and branding ourselves more effectively. The second was a
"Finance 101" workshop for our board and staff with concentration on using the budgeting process to move anon-
profitorganization forward. This workshop was facilitated by Anne Howden Consulting.
This fiscal year we moved from cash-based to accrual-based accounting. While this means our financial reports for
this transition year are confusing at best, in the long run the change will enable us to do a better job of assessing
our financial state and will position us for our first independent audit which we hope to complete next summer. This
audit procedure and resulting reports are a requirement of some of the larger funders as well as a prudent measure
to take.
LOOKING AHEAD
It is apparent that we have stretched our human resources to the maximum. Therefore, Maria Cole joined us on a
part-time contractual basis last week to help with marketing. We also are trying to structure our budget so that we
can also contract a grantswriter on apart-time basis to help increase funding from corporations, foundations and
government agencies.
Plans are well underway for our next fundraiser, Pets & Picasso II. which will be held on Saturday, September 16-
save the date! Then, our concert season kicks off with The Four Freshmen on October 7 and the film series with a
jazz show on October 9. New this coming fall are workshops for aspiring writers we are presenting in partnership
with The Loft Around Town.