Craft Emergency Relief Fund Needs Your Help!
Craft Emergency Relief Fund Needs Your Help!
The Craft Emergency Relief Fund is conducting a field inquiry of professional craft artists as part of our strategic planning. We're conducting interviews, focus groups and distributing a national survey.
Artists will need to go online to complete the survey. The survey will be active from February 1 through March 15, 2004.
This inquiry will allow CERF's board and staff to assess the needs of professional craft artists. What we learn will inform our decisions about CERF's future direction. The inquiry will also enlighten the craft field about the needs, challenges and opportunities craft artists face as they work to maintain their careers. With the help of Craig Dreeszen, an organizational development consultant and former wood craftsman, CERF's inquiry will be straightforward, informal, economical, and grounded in good listening. CERF will publish a report of its research findings in late fall/early winter of 2004. The report will widely distributed and will credit all of those organizations who assisted us in the effort.
CERF has served professional craft artists with emergency relief support since 1985. Over that time, we have assisted over 400 professional craft artists with more than $500,000 in loans and grants, and with close to $100,000 in other services (booth fee waivers, supplier discounts). While CERF will continue to expand and improve our emergency relief support to craft artists, our mission to help sustain and strengthen the careers of professional craft artists compels us ask what else we can do to support craft artists' careers. http://www.craftemergency.org