ETM-Bay Area

Organization Information:

Organization Name:
ETM-Bay Area
City & State:
San Francisco, 
California
Organization Website:
http://www.etmbayarea.org
Organization's Mission Statement

ETM-Bay Area's mission is to restore music education in the curricula of schools instructing economically disadvantaged populations as a means of enhancing students' academic performance and general development.

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Introduction

ETM-Bay Area (Education Through Music- Bay Area) formed in 2008 with the mission to restore music education in the curricula of schools instructing economically disadvantaged populations as a means of enhancing students' academic performance and general development. In doing so, ETM-Bay Area became the second affiliate of Education Through Music, Inc., a NYC based nonprofit established in 1991 and recognized as a model arts in education program by the U.S. Department of Education in 2005. As an affiliate organization, ETM-Bay Area strives to carry out the same level of dedication and commitment to bettering the lives and overall learning abilities of every child served by the program.

At ETM-Bay Area, we believe every child deserves a well-rounded education: one that includes music both as a subject in its own right and as a means of supporting learning in other areas. Research has shown that children learn better when music is part of their school routine, and we provide for this need. In September of 2008, we launched our pilot program at Peres Elementary School in Richmond, CA. Before becoming ETM-Bay Area’s pilot partner school, Peres had no school-wide general music instruction. Now, all 516 students enrolled receive weekly music instruction led by a professional music instructor. As a first year organization, we have utilized Microsoft software purchased through TechSoup to enhance our organizational capacity to provide quality instruction at Peres, promote our organization and the importance of music education, and to seek the necessary resources to expand.

Grant Seeking

Our development staff uses Microsoft software in every stage of seeking grant funding. The process begins with online research targeting foundations that support music education in the Bay Area using Internet Explorer. The functionality of the browser allows ETM-Bay Area’s staff to navigate and bookmark multiple pages, while comparing foundations, to find the best match for our organization. Many foundations post grant guidelines as Word files, and without the purchase of Microsoft Office, ETM-Bay Area would be unable to learn about these potential sources of funding. In our first year, it is important that we seek additional avenues of support to enable ETM-Bay Area to sustain the programs we implement and develop the organizational capacity to partner with additional schools. The Microsoft platform provides ETM-Bay Area with fundamental office tools necessary to find and apply for support.

From online research, our Development Associate creates a profile in Word of each foundation that provides a quality match with which to pursue collaboration. Because the entire organization uses Word, these profiles can be shared digitally while maintaining formatting highlighting key information. This enables ETM-Bay Area’s Executive Director to more quickly process the development staff’s research and gain insight to potential supporters before contacting them to inquire about building a relationship. As a small organization, we seek to maximize our time so that we can focus on our mission to provide comprehensive music education to students attending schools serving low-income populations.

Communication

All communication, ranging from thank you notes to groups that have performed at assemblies to yearly reports to our financial contributors, is written and edited in Microsoft Word. Prior to purchasing Microsoft’s software, each employee used a different method of word processing. For example, an article for our monthly newsletter highlighting the Winter Concert at Peres shifted between three file formats in the editing process causing difficulty deciphering what corrections and alterations had been made and to which file. Now, everyone at ETM-Bay Area uses Microsoft Word. This streamlines the editing process by allowing comments to be highlighted and made directly on a document without saving multiple files of the same text. Microsoft’s software makes us more efficient in every communication task including fundraising, marketing, outreach, and partnership development.

Budgeting

ETM-Bay Area uses Microsoft Excel to create budgets for our annual organizational expenses, program at Peres, reports to foundations, and marketing costs. Internally, these budgets insure that we properly allocate our resources throughout the fiscal year and provide a framework for organizational decisions and programming. Without Excel, ETM-Bay Area would have a less efficient method to organize, plan, and report finances. Excel makes it easy to duplicate these financial reports to share externally with foundations that ETM-Bay Area applies to for financial support. Microsoft’s software is the industry standard and having this technology helps us to effectively operate and compete in the nonprofit sector.

Training

To ensure our programs provide quality instruction, ETM-Bay Area formally trains teaching artists to improve their ability to educate children in the arts, collaborate with classroom teachers effectively, and identify thinking skills and content areas common to music and academic subjects that can support learning across the curriculum. Training sessions involve our teacher at Peres and teaching artists from seven other Bay Area schools which we provide consulting services to utilizing Microsoft PowerPoint to clearly present information, ensuring their effectiveness in teaching methods to improve the quality of services the teachers provide. ETM-Bay Area also uses PowerPoint to communicate program goals and outcomes to principals, classroom teachers, parents, and members of the community. Training helps teaching artists to learn how to effectively collaborate with classroom teachers and integrate academic lessons into the music education curricula. Our programs directly impact every student in the schools we serve, and we work to enhance the quality of services we offer for the duration of our partnerships.

Conclusion

Our purchase of Microsoft software through TechSoup has provided our organization with fundamental tools necessary to effectively run a nonprofit organization that impacts the lives of hundreds of students at Peres, and thousands more through our consulting work. A $5000 “Show Your Impact” award represents the cost for ETM-Bay Area to provide weekly, year-long music education to an entire class and would help us to reach our yearly fundraising goals. ETM-Bay Area provides students with music education, a core academic subject, and helps bolster students’ achievement in and attitude towards music and school. With the support of technology provided by Microsoft and TechSoup, ETM-Bay Area has been able to develop organizational stability and standards for research, communication, marketing, fundraising, and training. ETM-Bay Area looks forward to growing using this software, and thanks you for your interest in our program.

Submission Category
Stable and Secure Technology