Founded over 20 years ago by legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins and accomplished Poet Kamau Daáood, The World Stage continues to evolve.  Our Board of Directors is engaged in developing a plan for the future of The World Stage.  There is certainly more for us to do, but we’ve had several successes over the past few months.  Some of our successes include:

·       Development of a full, active board of directors with operating committees focused on organizational development, marketing and communications, and fiscal health.  Quite a bit of this has occurred behind the scenes, but the Board considers this work foundational to the continued development of The World Stage.  The volunteer Board is contributing significant time, talent and treasures to propel The World Stage forward. 

·       Our Board has secured two interns who are working each week on improving our services and volunteers from Loyola Marymount University who are supporting our efforts.

·       We have conducted two extremely successful fundraisers designed to engage the community and improve our fiscal circumstance.  Our fundraising activity for November will be our annual solicitation that will be augmented this year by allowing gifts to be made electronically.  We are catching up on outstanding debts incurred over the years.

·       Based on the efforts of our volunteer staff we now have a world class website to serve as a communication vehicle for programming. 

·       We finally secured an active Executive Director and named an Artistic Director. 

·       Through the efforts of the Board we've begun the process of writing grants to support our work.  We are reaching out to other arts organizations for support and partnerships and have developed an exciting relationship with The Harmony Project, which includes joint grant writing.

·       We have completed an assessment of our organizational strengths and weaknesses, which we'll use to improve our interface with the community. 

·       We've conducted meetings with the community to help develop a path forward for The World Stage, which the entire community can support. 

·       We have received support and encouragement from one of the founders of The World Stage to forge ahead in our current direction. 

·       We've contacted the City, County and State arts commission and elected officials to ensure that we have their support. 

·       As economic development continues in our community, we are ensuring that The World Stage is included in plans for the future of Leimert Park.

·       We’re completing a renovation of The World Stage.  If you haven’t been to The World Stage recently you owe it to yourself to see our impact.

·        We’ve expanded the use of our facility and the programmatic breadth of The World Stage to include substantially more youth programs.  We now have after school arts programming at The World Stage four days a week.

·       We continue to operate our famed workshops every night of the week.

This represents only some of our successes over the past 3 months.  Considering the trajectory of improvement we find ourselves on the future of The World Stage is bright.  Some might consider it a challenge that we are a largely volunteer community arts organization.  However, we know what a community can do when it bands together in common purpose.  I like our odds.

Of course, there’s more that we can do.  We need the strength and patience of our Workshop Coordinators to continue.  We need even more committed volunteers.  We need our patrons to show that they value our programming by making a contribution at the door (as the preacher said, give in relation to how you’ve been blessed).  We need grant writers.  We need a new piano and sound system installed.  We need your prayers.  We need you.  Take a look at the website or come to a workshop and find out how you can contribute to the legacy of African American arts in the center of Los Angeles’ cultural community.  Make an online contribution.  Giving time, expertise and money is equivalent to planting seeds at The World Stage, which we will cultivate into transformative artistic experiences for our youth.

Join us in spirit.  Join us in deed.  Join us.

Trevor Ware
President
The World Stage Board of Directors