Claude McNeal Productions, 2020 Residual Grant Winner Report
Jeff Owen, Chief Operating Officer of Claude McNeal Productions, submitted the nonprofit’s residual grant final report and the information he provided made it clear the nonprofit made the most of the $26,000 grant they received in July, 2020.
What follows is their December 1, 2020, report.
Impact 100: How did the unrestricted fund strengthen your organization?
Claude McNeal Productions was able to use the funds to either supplement or completely underwrite the costs of our ACT Out social-issue theatre performances at a time that many schools and organizations were having to cancel performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At at time when our organization was seeing a lack of income due to cancelled events, these unrestricted funds helped them to stay afloat, while also allowing us to reach out to area schools and groups of students in need to provide much-needed social-issue programming. In addition, this funding, along with other relief funds and grants from local foundations, helped us to bridge the gap before other annual grants came along.
Being an Impact 100 Change Maker Finalist also helped to strengthen our organization by letting us leverage the Impact 100 support to garner other relief funding from the city and state. Because everyone in the funding community knows that the vetting process to become a finalist is so rigorous and thoughtful, thus put us in a very favorable light with organizations such as Lilly Endowment, the Arts Council of Indianapolis, the Indiana Arts Commission, and the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation – all of which gave us relief funding this year. We truly believe and feel we received this additional support because of the investment by Impact 100.
Impact 100: Describe the specific successes achieved as a result of receiving the unrestricted funds from Impact 100 Greater Indianapolis.
Since Claude McNeal Productions received our residual funding in July, we have been able to completely underwrite 12 ACT Out social-issue theatre programs on kindness and bullying prevention for up to 200 students involved in the Indy Parks Summer Youth Programs. We worked with students at Christian Park, Broad Ripple Park, Riverside Park, Indianapolis World Sports Park, Eagle Creek Park, and Garfield Park.
We were also able to use a large portion of the funding to help underwrite a series of 23 anti-violence and anti-bullying prevention programs for over 1,800 students located within the Cass County School Corporation (primarily in Logansport, Indiana). Programs will begin in December and continue in January through March of 2021.
Finally, the remaining funds have been used to help develop NEW programming specifically related to helping students deal with the stress, anxiety, and feelings of desperation during the pandemic – including shows on the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise in police hate relations, and other areas of equity and inclusion.
