1. Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information, partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you engaged. We are creating a thriving music community with a mix of programs and events that connect people of all ages to enrich public life. Our service creates shows that provide new entryways to classical music, like GAMEPLAY, which explores music composition for video games. We present music in high traffic public places, like the airport to make it part of everyday life. We exude youthfulness by featuring an array of artists and students on air from the music school where we call home, Interlochen Center for the Arts Our news services focuses on sharing the best public radio programming with our region and adding in a layer of high-quality enterprise reporting from our region, especially around conservation and environmental topics that are of broad interest in our communities. Both our services are developing more robust digital channels through email newsletters, web content and podcasts. 2. Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area. Last year we worked with numerous partners to present music across the region, including Glen Arbor Arts Center, Garden Theatre, Art Rapids, Cherry Capital Airport, Northwest Michigan Arts and Culture Network and Cheboygan Chamberfest. Recordings from Cheboygan have been featured on the national show Performance Today. We presented or helped present more than 20 free concerts to more than 2,000 people. In news we established a joint reporting position with our regions largest daily, Traverse City Record-Eagle. We hosted an intern from Michigan State University and finalized a partnership with Grist for climate reporting, something our audience is keenly interested in. 3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or from a person(s) served. The tour we created for QuinTango, a Washington D.C. based Argentinian tango ensemble, would not have been possible without the partner set we put together which involved four other non-profits: Glen Arbor Arts Center, Garden Theatre, Justice and Peace Advocacy Center and Traverse City Tango Club. Nearly 600 people saw this ensemble perform live, a type of music that would not be commercially viable otherwise in our region. 4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including, but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate adults) during Fiscal Year 2022, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2023. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast. The inclusion of Justice and Peace Advocacy Center in the QuinTango series was done specifically to connect Spanish-speaking people in our region with that cultural event. JPAC serves the migrant community in our region. They organized a dinner that was used as a fundraiser at one of the concerts. We also produce an ongoing spot series about terms and names in our region's indigenous language, Anishinaabemowin. It is voiced by a native language teacher from Ontario, Canada. 5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community. What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't receive it? Without the CPB grant our service would be a shell of what it is now, likely a single channel operation instead of the two-channel format we have now, one all news the other all music channel. Most of our original content creation would be lost in favor of playing commercial recordings and merely keeping the broadcast going. We would have no capacity to partner as we do now. Most everything discussed here would be unlikely to happen. |
