On Tuesday, January 28th the P.S. ARTS board, staff, and a few special guests gathered at Shutters on the Beach for our annual Board Retreat. Generously hosted and underwritten year after year by Dana and Edward Slatkin, this annual evening at Shutters is a much-loved tradition. With the delicious dinner (fig crostini, marinated shrimp, roasted chicken, salmon moutarde) the fabulous chefs at Shutters created for us, and the candy overflowing every table (red Swedish fish are always a must), the food is tough competition for our agenda. And speaking of delicious eats, check out our gracious hostess’s website, my favorite resource for mostly meatless recipes and other fun foodie finds.
Our evening began with the introduction of our newest board member, Naomi Scott, who joined the board in January and therefore was attending her first P.S. ARTS board meeting. Naomi has been a fantastic friend to our organization in recent years and is also an incredible producer. (You can check out some of her hilarious work here.) Naomi wasn’t the newest for long though, as the next item on our agenda was electing longtime P.S. ARTS supporter Hadley Davis Rierson to the board of trustees. Hadley has been an active member of our Express Yourself committee since 2005 and most recently helped to create our exciting new Express Yourself Sizzle Reel. We are so lucky to have both of these stellar ladies on team P.S. ARTS.
The theme of our retreat varies and this year our focus was “Building a Culture of Philanthropy” at P.S. ARTS. Janet McIntyre, the Program Director at Executive Service Corps of Southern California, joined us with a fantastic presentation on Individual Giving trends. This was especially interesting, as P.S. ARTS has historically relied on foundation support and special events (side note: pre-sale tickets for our April fundraiser LA Modernism Opening Night are now available!) for the bulk of our operating budget. We do have an awesome membership program but that is relatively new for the organization and still growing. We were fascinated to learn that individuals make up 72% of the charitable giving in this country and that in 2012 that amounted to $316 billion! We also learned that “making an ask” is only one of the six steps of the fund development cycle and that the “thank you” stage is one of the most important. At P.S. ARTS we try to thank, thank and thank again…how do think we are doing? Our Development Officer, Jennifer Leitch, would love your feedback – it will help us improve, raise more money, and provide even more students with an education in the arts!
We closed our retreat with a lively discussion about a HUGE opportunity coming up for P.S. ARTS. I can’t tell you the details yet but stay tuned, we may be making an exciting announcement in March.
P.S. Check out this amazing sunset that greeted us in the Beachside Room at Shutters the night of our retreat (this incredible picture was taken by one of our staff members).
A big thank you to our board, staff, the Slatkins, Shutters, and the Executive Service Corps of Southern California team for another great retreat!
