Full Cost Recovery Tool

I speak with my fundraising hat on today. Every fundraiser needs to do it – present a budget for the amount you’re asking for. Never easy to do before the start of a project but there is help out there! I’ve come across this tool from the New Philanthropy Capital website which should help you out calculating just how much a project will cost you.

After the Crunch

A bleak budget just announced and with the only certainty that cuts to public spending will be made – what do those working in the creative economies really think?

‘After The Crunch, is a collaborative response to the global recession from those operating in the creative economy featuring contributions from prominent UK and international creative leaders and economists including Charles Leadbeater, Richard Florida, Iwona Blazwick, Edna dos Santos-Duisenberg, Stuart Cunningham, Will Hutton, Martin Bright and many more…’

You can download it free from Creative Choices website and also blog your responses too.

Make your website earn for you

With new credit crunch stories appearing everyday the prospect of making your website earn for you suddenly becomes ever more appealing. I recently came across Skimlinks – a Nesta invested online tool that makes affiliate marketing a seamless part of your website.

So here’s how it works in non-techno babble; if I was blogging about the Lion King and wanted to recommended it. Through the Skimlinks plugin tool on my blog, interested readers will be able to click the link which will take them through to a booking merchant subscribed to Skimlinks such as lastminute.com that are selling Lion King tickets.  If the reader makes the purchase then you will receive a fee from the merchant company as the sale was made through your website. Simple.

Now I’ve not tried it myself yet but if you do, remember to drop me a comment on how it worked for you!!

cross over digital marketing

What did we used to do before www.streetmap.co.uk ? The days of fumbling through a musty, yellowing and dog-eared A to Z are over, yet the memory lives on.

So I was looking up an address on streetmap near the Aldwych and noticed this strange symbol all over my map. Outraged by this invasion of my map space and being the curious mind I am, I took a closer look. Then it dawned on me. What better use of digital marketing then to embed short promos of your theatre shows (in this case the Lion King) to what is a widely used online map. So unsuspecting users can not only find out what’s on in the area they’re about to visit but also the location of the venue and directly link through to ticket bookings.

This is cross over digital marketing at it’s finest and a clever use of online mapping making the trusty A to Z ever more redundant.
The people behind the videos are http://penkat.com/

Everyone has art in them

If you believe that everyone has a book in them, then, like me, you’ll probably think everyone has art in them too.

So here’s your chance to peddle your art wares and show the world just how much undiscovered talent resides in your as yet untapped mind.

Charles Saatchi and BBC are searching for the next best British artist. Saatchi’s Best of British is open for submissions until the end March so upload or send in your creations to www.submityourart.com and maybe you’ll be the next Banksy.

Back to School

In a return themed blog – I’m happy to announce I’m back and blogging after a months hiatus. I’d like to say I’ve been away experiencing new and exciting things to bring back and blog to you but alas that’s not the case - instead it’s been more of a hibernation.

So to wake us all up, I’m bringing you free access to Open University management and leadership e-learning online short courses. They’re free for a limited time only so check out the site http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/server.php?show=nav.463 , register and start learning about, – The power of networking or – Managing human performance, don’t you just love the action hero style titles (any excuse to add a comic hero picture and quote ‘with great power comes great responsibility’) 

4 days left to stimulate your grey matter

If, like me, you’re looking for that mental stimulation to feed your curious mind why not spend half an hour during your lunch break to catch up on last Friday’s Newsnight Review special on how the credit crunch will impact the arts – very topical indeed.

You’ll get debate on everything from film to funding to what audiences like to see during bad times. I particularly liked (Sir) John Tusa calling for the Olympic opening and and closing ceremonies to be cancelled so that the money saved can be channelled back to the arts.

As if.

You’ve only till Friday to check it out on BBC iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g33n6/Newsnight_Review_12_12_2008/

I’ve seen the light…

I was at a Christmas party last night – the ones where you are invited to go along because Audiences London are a client organisation of the hosts (in this case our landlords), so you have to do the whole networking, fact-finding thing whilst trying to make a scramble for the canapes.

And who says nothing interesting ever comes out of these things. I came across some interesting people at Light and Design Associates, fascinating creatives that use lighting to create an all together more welcoming atmosphere and have worked with many theatres, galleries and museums in London. This is useful because the welcome to any arts venue is one of many factors that brings audiences back and often the little things like lighting can make a big difference. For more info check out their website http://www.lightanddesign.co.uk/

Inside the curious world of Pak’s mind

Hello bloggers  – By reading this blog you have accepted to be part of my curious mind – don’t worry – this only requires you to read my blog and maybe respond to my posts – and every now and then, i may respond to your response – and somebody else may respond to my response to your response and the curiosity cycle will grow and together we can amass knowledge and power previously unknown in a blog of this kind - 

In true blogging fashion i’ve been tasked to start by telling you a bit more about me – so all you need to know is that i’ll be blogging on useful things i come across in my daily line of work which could be about training opportunities, fundraising, trustees and much more.