Playwrights

Section I: Organization Information

Agency Mission: Philadelphia Young Playwrights taps the potential of youth and inspires learning through playwriting. In executing our mission, Young Playwrights focuses on:

*improving students; writing, thinking and interactive skills
*enhancing students’ sense of agency, responsibility and self-esteem
*reaching students of diverse backgrounds and abilities, and
*stimulating awareness of, and building new audiences for theatre with students, their families and communities.

Name/Title of Contact: Lindsay Mauck, Resource Development Associate

Address: 1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Phone Number: 215-665-9226

Website: http://www.phillyyoungplaywrights.org/

Email: lindsay@phillyyoungplaywrights.org

Total number of agency staff members: 6 Full Time, 2 Part Time

Agency Budget: $740,000

Section II: Community Need

Please state in measurable and quantifiable terms the specific community need that the Philly Fellow will address, including the number of people in the community directly affected by the problem.

Philadelphia Young Playwrights addresses Philadelphia’s urgent need for arts education, along with providing an alternative creative outlet in which youth can enjoy improving their literacy and writing skills. Increasing literacy is vital in the fight against poverty, and every year Young Playwrights helps guide 1,700 students throughout 50 urban and suburban classrooms towards success. A Philly Fellow would be key in this service to the community by expanding our reach through marketing, thereby increasing the impact of our mission. With improved communications our organization can reach more students, along with inviting the community to readings, special events and professional productions of student written work. With a Philly Fellow, Young Playwrights can impact the lives of more youth, especially those in low-income areas with little arts education and few cultural opportunities. When young people write about their lives, they gain the power to transform them. By investing in our youth today, we are helping to ensure a better tomorrow.

Describe how your agency addresses this need, and how the new capacity created by this fellow will help alleviate the problem.

Currently, Young Playwrights does amazing work with youth and everyday has a new story to tell about the transformative effects of playwriting. Unfortunately, our staff lacks the capacity to share and leverage many of these stories within the community in timely and strategic fashions. Prior to our engagement with 2009-10 Philly Fellow, Yuan Liu, we spread the marketing and communication functions throughout the organization. A full-time Marketing / Communications Coordinator will allow us to consolidate these efforts and integrate programming and development needs into all of our communications with our clients and the general public. A full-time marketing position allows our messaging to be consistent, creating a stronger brand and knowledge about our program. With this improved strength and consistency in storytelling the general public will become aware that our youth all have something important to say worth hearing. The Fellow’s assistance allows us to better serve the needs of our teachers and students via the effects of further outreach: increased community support and advocacy. In just a few months, our 2009-10 Marketing/Communications Fellow has helped increase awareness of our program through the development and marketing functions of this position. We desire to sustain the impact of this position through a 2010-11 Philly Fellow, which will enable us to broaden our reach to students, audiences, and school communities.

Describe the level of community involvement in the fellow’s project.

The Fellow cannot properly communicate the impacts of the program and the uniqueness of events without understanding how we serve the community. Participation in program events is vital to the understanding of Young Playwrights. Community involvement is also key in creating meaningful messaging that will reach our constituents. The Fellow will need to learn how to communicate to our audiences and can only do this by knowing who that audience is and the unique strengths of our program. The Fellow will also create and foster an online community in which students can communicate with one another via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other outlets, thereby building relationships across neighborhoods.

Section III: Job Description

Please outline in list form the fellow's duties and responsibilities.

• Web updating, managing of our social networking sites, special events and promotion of productions.
• Helping to conceive the overall strategy and content of communications.
• Working with our public relations and design firm, serving as a company liaison that can answer inquiries, provide additional materials and monitor deadlines for content and revisions.
• Assisting our Resource Development Associate in communicating with funders and donors, publicity of funders and donors and other projects related to integrated marketing of fundraising and program events.
• Managing distribution and recording of audience surveys and demonstrating an ability to apply that knowledge to our marketing, along with managing our participation in the GPCA’s List Co-Op.
• Working some evenings and weekends to attend program events.

Please outline in list form the skills/qualifications a fellow should have to succeed in the position.

Interest in theater and arts education, detail oriented, excellent phone manner, professional writing skills, ability to multi-task, strong computer proficiency and creativity. Preferred experience in website content management systems, publishing software and other social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and EventBrite. A working knowledge or interest in learning Adobe Creative Suite, especially Photoshop, is a plus. An enthusiasm for our mission and a desire to communicate that to the community at large is required to succeed in this position.

Please describe your agency's plan to orient and train the fellow.

Lindsay Mauck, Resource Development Associate will first orient the Fellow in general organizational operations; the fellow will also use a written training manual compiled by Yuan Liu, 2009-10 Philly Fellow. Along with this orientation, Ms. Mauck will familiarize the Fellow with all electronic files, database functions, List Co-Op participation, audience surveys, Constant Contact, EventBrite, Flickr, annual events and introduce him/her into a working relationship with our design firm, Design for Social Impact. Nirvana Rivera, Program and Outreach Associate, will orient the Fellow in our social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, along with providing an introduction to our web content management system. She will also provide a detailed orientation on our program and its impacts. General and Program Manager, Genne Murphy, will assist Ms. Mauck in certain web-based, List Co-op, and database trainings for the Philly Fellow.

Section IV: Project Plan

Please describe the proposed project goal(s) you expect the fellow to achieve. These should relate to your community need and reflect the long-term impact of the fellow’s project.

Fellow will strengthen our marketing / communications function thus expanding the impact of our mission by:
• Continuing to adapt communications to target younger audiences, increasing the amount of young people who attend our readings and other events.
• Expanding the awareness and impact of public performances for student written plays, increasing audience size and diversity.
• Assisting Resource Development Associate with promotional materials, helping to improve their quality as well as their segmentation for various funders and donors.
• Promoting the Annual Playwriting Festival, increasing the amount of student submissions, especially those from lower income communities.
• Maintaining and improving the new website (launching in December 2009) in conjunction with other staff, increasing web traffic and interactive “conversations.”
• Targeting the School District of Philadelphia, increasing their participation via professional development opportunities and number of participating classrooms and schools.

Section V: The Nitty Gritty

Will fellow be working at the same address listed above?

Yes

Please describe the fellow's work environment.

Fellow will have a shared office.
Fellow will have their own desk.
Fellow will have their own computer.

Please list the name and title of the fellow's immediate supervisor.

Lindsay Mauck, Resource Development Associate

Please approximate the percentage of time fellow will work:

Independently: 30%
As a team member in a group setting: 60%
As a team leader in a group setting: 10%

Travel:

Will the fellow be expected to travel as part of the position?

Yes

If so, how often and where?

The Fellow will travel occasionally- 1 to 3 times per month- within Philadelphia for events and professional development opportunities.

Will the fellow need the following to carry out the position?

A driver’s license: No
Their own car: No

Section VI: Supervison/Resouces

Please briefly describe plans for supervision of fellow:

The Resource Development Associate will closely supervise the Fellow, along with sharing an office with him/her. This will ensure that Development and Marketing develop consistent messaging and work together towards positively representing Young Playwrights and enhancing their connection to the community, including their participants, audiences, donors and funders. Our Executive Producing Director, Glen Knapp, will also closely mentor the Fellow and train them in relationship building and communications. Our board-level Marketing Committee will provide opportunities for the Fellow to meet marketing and communications professionals and seek their advice as they move forward.

What methods, information, or data will you use to evaluate the fellow’s success in their position and your agency’s success in meeting your community need?

Data will be collected by the supervisor on skills such as the Fellow’s ability to meet deadlines, work well and communicate with others and solicit feedback from constituents and staff in order to continually improve their work. The Fellow’s willingness to be involved in community events and outreach, thereby familiarizing themselves with our audiences and their needs, will be monitored. Information on the Fellow’s initiative to take part and learn more about how they can serve the community will be collected. Check-ins will occur on a bi-weekly basis. In these check-ins the supervisor will appraise the Fellow’s performance by the above criteria and discuss areas of needed improvement. At this time the Fellow will also be able to communicate their job satisfaction level and if there are other tasks or professional development opportunities they are interested in. We will also evaluate our organizations’ success, since the Fellow’s addition to the staff, towards our set marketing initiative from our 2009-12 Strategic Plan: Develop and implement an aggressive brand alignment strategy that creates market distinction for Young Playwrights, increases overall visibility and familiarity with the brand, and delivers a consistent, clear and memorable branding message and impact at every touch point of the Young Playwrights experience.