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Seattle Arts & Lectures

Budget Size: Between 1MM and 5MM

Region: Northwest

County: King

Mission Statement: Seattle Arts & Lectures cultivates transformative experiences through story and language with readers and writers of all generations.

Community Accelerator Grant Award: $23,800

Primary Impact Category: The Future

Website: https://lectures.org/

For many Seattleites, it’s hard to imagine the city without Seattle Arts & Lectures. A community mainstay for almost 40 years, Seattle Arts & Lectures brings youth-focused programming to Seattle public schools, draws crowds of thousands to Benaroya and McCaw Halls for events featuring authors and thinkers such as Joy Harjo, Barbara Kingsolver, and Viet Tanh Nguyen, and curates smaller-scale public programs at community venues like Hugo House and the Rainier Arts Center.

Still, for an organization centered around crafting experiences that reflect the needs and interests of a constantly evolving city, the last few years have presented a unique challenge. The Community Accelerator Grant “came at a time when we were just bringing audiences back, and revenue was uncertain,” says Development Director Betsey Brock. “We’ve spent the last four years always being scrappy, always pivoting, and this fiscal year we’ve finally been able to do some forward thinking and dreaming.” One of those dreams is manifesting this fall as SAL pilots WITS Rewritten, a brand-new initiative that is providing their beloved Writers in the Schools residency program to three Seattle-area schools free of charge.

SAL has always heavily subsidized the cost of these residencies, covering 70% to 90% of program costs, but in this period of budget cuts and unusually low student enrollment rates, many schools are finding any and all supplementary programming to be cost-prohibitive. WITS Rewritten will help SAL reach students in schools furthest from educational and economic justice. They’re piloting the program at three of this year’s 36 WITS schools and expect WITS Rewritten to reach 480 students this year. By their fortieth anniversary in 2027, SAL hopes to be in a position to offer WITS free of charge to forty schools.

A woman in sitting on stage in a tan arm chair in front of a microphone.

A child in a room with a bunch of designed papers organized into a line on the wall. The child is holding one of the papers in their hands and is studying the wall.

A man and woman sit in tan armchairs with mics on a stage in mid conversation.

“We’re completely changing our business model right now. Having a successful year – and the Community Accelerator Grant was a big part of that – really allowed us to move that forward.”

Betsey Brock, Development Director, Seattle Arts & Lectures

With their in-person programs back up and running, SAL is implementing several improvements to what “business as usual” can and should look like. Livestreaming all programming and offering Pay-What-You-Can tickets to all events were COVID-era measures that now feel fundamental to how the organization operates, and after the long, dark winter of the pandemic, they’re now selling out the biggest stages in the city – which means more time and energy to devote to dreaming Seattle Arts & Lectures anew.

 

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