The Oregon Arts Watch website launched in early July with commissioned stories from four local arts journalists, plans to move towards attaining nonprofit status, and some partnerships and events in the works.
After some problems with an initial website, the project launched a pilot site on WordPress while one of its board members has donated time to develop a better site for the future.
So far, the site has broken some news, written some previews and reviews and tried some longer-form feature stories and shorter form news bits. Podcasts are planned, said site founder Barry Johnson.
The site has commissioned stories from:
- Brett Campbell, who does classical music stories.
- Lisa Radon, who writes about visual arts for a variety of publications.
- Bob Hicks, a former editor for The Oregonian.
- Martha Ullman West, who just completed her term as the president of the national Dance Critics Association, is working on OAW’s Northwest Biographies project.
The site is lining up more journalists to write stories for this fall.
OAW has received a small revenue stream ($6,000 per year) for producing a “highlights” calendar for TravelPortland, a non-profit destination marketing organization. Johnson said this might expand to include regular syndication of OAW content on the TravelPortand site.
OAW has started another partnership with Playbills Northwest, which provides programs to several of the larger local arts organizations. It sells advertising into those programs and has begun producing a performing arts annual. The company has agreed to help sell ads and sponsorships for OAW’s website and eNewsletter.and OAW is providing the first installment of its Northwest Biographies project for the annual.
OAW has not yet ramped up web advertising, but Johnson said the Regional Arts and Culture Council has already reserved space to advertise its mobile public art application.
Key to OAW’s business plan are partnerships with arts groups, and Johnson said OAW has nailed down the details of its arrangements with most of the arts organizations that initially agreed to be OAW partners. There are three main parts to these partnerships:
- The arts groups are helping OAW connect to their subscribers and members so OAW can convert them, free of charge, to membership in Oregon Arts Watch. “We will be giving them materials to insert in their ticket packages that will direct subscribers to our sign-up page. They will also link to us from their email blasts. Our goal is ambitious (15,000). We are counting on converting a large number of these free memberships into paid ones in Year Two of the project,” Johnson said.
- The arts groups are paying OAW a small amount of money per subscriber to pay for the memberships. This is a major part of OAW’s projected income for Year One.
- In return, OAW is offering the partnering arts groups the chance to use its eNewsletter to offer ticket discounts and packages to the full mailing list.
- The fourth aspect is simply the marketing muscle of the arts groups, through their email blasts and social marketing efforts.
OAW has been in talks with Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian about other partnerships. And it is planning two special events, one for the fall and one for the winter, one focusing on theater and the other dance. OAW will invite its members to these events, record them and also use them to encourage discussion on the website.
OAW has assembled a six-member board of directors and its moving forward in seeking its nonprofit 501(c)(3) application. Each of the board members is working on a special project, such asweb design, special events, contracts, and legal business.
“Mostly, we need to do some journalism so that both our partners and our audience begins to see what we’re attempting to do,” Johnson said, “and so that we can figure that out ourselves.”
