0:00 Well, hello, folks. So we are doing something a little bit different for this part of the exchange stage at generosity exchange. I am local in my community with create community studios here. And I'm here with Heather. Hello. And Heather and I have known each other for kind of a few years now. 0:22 Yeah, you contacted me right after we got our ribbon cutting. Yeah. And in the early stages of CREATE 0:28 I know, no, I, I just cold emailed her and was like, Look, I want to learn more. And, and now you're using a few different things from neon one. So I am really grateful for you taking some time out of your day to chat with me today. We I not only do I use our stuff, but I am a donor an active member of your community. Yeah, actually, yeah. So I wanted to kind of bring people in to the space, we're actually going to shoot a little tour on my phone, too. We're pretty low fi here. But doesn't have to be like super produced, right? Because this is real life. Out there. Tell us a little bit about create community studios, because this is not the only location. So tell me a bit about the history of the organization. 1:30 So it's actually an academic Capital Region, expressive arts, Transformation and Empowerment. And we started five years ago, just over five years ago, actually. And we have a studio here that we're sitting in Schenectady, and then we have a studio work in Saratoga, New York State, you should say, right? Yes. We're in New York. So 1:53 we do have 1300 people. Not all of them are in upstate. Yes, 1:58 yes, we're in the capital region of New York. And so we formed five, five, over five years ago, because there was a void in the capital region for the Expressive Arts, particularly, and using art for our mental health, wellness. And just grassroots community art. So we're not just create studios we're create community studios, that using the word community was very intentional on our part. Because we want everyone to feel like they're welcome. They're, we're all part of a community. And everyone is an artist. So that's, that's the base of what create is using art for community connection. 2:44 Well, and and what's really cool is that inclusive nature, there's a lot of wonderful things that you do to make many underrepresented communities feel welcome, here. And that's what I've noticed even coming in. So I bring my girls, my oldest daughter, pepper is very creative, and very hands on and so being able to do, we bring her to clay class. And I have started bringing my twin girls too and that's the it's a lot of fun, but being able to come and see all the different types of people. Yeah, here. 3:25 Yeah, and a lot of our classes are all ages, like the clay class, in particular, as all ages are studio time is all ages. And that's intentional, so that people can see like younger people working with older people and people from lots of different kinds of backgrounds. That's really the core of who we are. Because I think a lot of times people see art classes as unreachable, they're not, they don't see themselves as an artist, or they can't afford to pay for an art class that costs like $30 A session. So we strive to make things approachable, affordable, and and really reach out to the communities that have not been able to experience the Expressive Arts. 4:07 Talk a little bit about what happened, basically, march 2020 hits. We don't want to dwell on it. The pandemic's not over sorry, folks, but but and we don't want to dwell on it. But especially for organizations in the arts and theater world, there was a pretty big hit that we saw, and and especially for things being so in person, and so driven by the classes and workshops and hands on elements, what what did your organization have to do in that situation? 4:40 For everyone, obviously, it was really scary. But the our first concern was for some of the folks that we don't even we didn't even know how to reach them, because they just come into the studio. They maybe don't even have a cell phone because they live in a shelter or group home. And so our concern was for them Those folks and not being able to reach them. So we started a lot of agency outreach, we started a fund called taking care. So that was just basically asking the greater community to donate towards getting art boxes out to the community, obviously, we were all isolating and isolated. And so we distributed some 200, or kits amongst community agencies, human service agencies. So that folks would have projects to work on whether they lived by themselves, or they lived in a group home. And that was we had just an amazing response in terms of people's generosity, and wanting to contribute. People would buy a kit for themselves, then like pay it forward to buy like three kits for community members. So we did that. Yeah, not just through human service agencies, but schools we worked with. And it was really amazing. So it was a lot of driving around dropping things off, as a lot of folks were doing. And then we we looked at like, Well, where can we be safely so we could be safely outside. And fortunately, like, March led to April and May and some warmer months, and we were doing a lot of chalk art to one of our instructors had a Facebook and Instagram page she'd done years and years prior to COVID called Block poetry. And so she kind of mobilized some of her former students and dropped off like hundreds of bags of sidewalk chalk. And so that was a movement to have documenting, you know, just snippets of your day. Yeah, know, just getting people to 6:52 draw some a card message on their sidewalk or, 6:57 like a quote. I know, my son was out there drawing baby Yoda. So stuff like that just to make each other smile, because we all need it. So so yeah. And then as the summer months came, we we reached out to some local foundations to get some funding to do some in person stuff outside because we really, you know, none of us could be inside. So we ran a series called create together. And that, that sense of everyone coming back together. And I think the first one we ran was in June 2020. It was just like, palpable, like everyone was just like, convenient versus like, you're in masks, and we're outside. And it's a little cold, but it's okay. And it was, yeah, it was really amazing. Like, it was just such a moving experience. And just everyone appreciating being out of isolation, you know, so, yeah, I get a little like, choked up even like thinking about it. Yeah. So so that was that was our COVID experience. And we are really fortunate that we weathered it pretty well. We're all thanks, thanks to the generosity of our community and some local foundations. So 8:19 touching on that, we're going to transition a little bit into some neon stuff was Heather has a meeting. So we had to keep this short today. And that's, that's good. We want to just be we're gonna let the sea for sirens go if you're hearing that. Talk a little bit about how you've been able to kind of streamline some of the payment items, not just for donations, but even the workshops with neon CRM actually, 8:47 yeah. So we we started using neon soon after I met you. Funny how that works. And just mostly as a back end database, or mailing list donors, that sort of thing. And then as we as we grew and kind of grew out of our I guess we were using like a Squarespace website when we first got started needing to have more pages to explain what we do tell more about us. We transitioned over to having Jambi, our website host and but all along neon has allowed us to have the registration for our events. So as being an arts organization, that's the bulk of what we do is we hold events in the community, some of them are free, but even some of the free events that we we, you know, particularly COVID We're asking people to register in advance. And then also that was an opportunity to not just for people to register so we had a headcount, but then we got captured their information so we can get them on our mailing list and and then there was that option for people to do donate a little bit extra, even if they could. Just a couple dollars. So lots of people do take advantage of that. For our for our free or low cost events. And yeah, it's allowed us to have a pretty good headcount of like how many people we serve every, every month every year, in terms of tracking attendance, and that sort of thing. So when 10:23 I do the clay class, and I'll show people, one of the items that I've made, and then my kids, if anyone cares about that, we'll put that at the end of the video. But I've been logging in, even to log the children and to put, I'm the one paying, but here's Maggie, pepper and Rosie, as the attendees because then that helps with, okay, I know there's four people coming, one person has to pay. And you were the first folks that I tested live the Google Pay when we rolled that out, because we just see, you didn't know, I didn't even know, we just turned it on for everybody. Everybody thinks, Oh, you just have to do all this work. It's like, just give it to everybody. So we I was like, I'm gonna make a real donation. Okay, so So you're, you're kind of you're kind of my default for that. Good to know. Okay, so I know you had to go. look directly at the camera. Tell our team though. As an arts organization, what's a wishlist item that you want? 11:26 Yeah, I've been bugging him for this for a long time we need on site event registration. 11:32 So something mobile, easy to sign in, check in at the events. Tap pay. You know, like square. Yeah. Am I allowed to mention someone? 11:43 You can mention that? That's fine. Like a square point. Yeah, we need a point of sale you need a point of sale. Nolan. Allison Anna, if you're watching this. There you go. You hear you heard it here, but not first, because we do have that wonderful user voice interface for suggestions too Heather, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day for me to pop in. And we'll have a few things. I'm going to walk around and actually do a little bit of a tour of the space. And I have a little extra surprise at the end of the video folks for for people too. So thank you very much. And thank you folks enjoy the rest of generosity xchange Transcribed by https://otter.ai