Amy Funk, Joyana Dvorak, Bridget Greenfield MPS 524 11/10/11

The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.

The Poetry Foundation was created in 2001 $200 million gift from Ruth Lilly Previously Poetry magazine With the name change came a leadership and mission change

"I concluded what poetry most needs is an audience," -John Barr, Poetry Foundation President since 2003

Schoolchildren Teachers General American Public Academics Poets Not donors the organization does not fundraise

Internal Strengths 1. Only organization that has funds to do outreach and research 2. 3. 4. Unique mission New building draws attention. Utilizing social media 3. 4. 1. 2. Weaknesses One person staff for initiative. Many proposals come in, but have limited time/resources Balancing national audience and Chicago audience Some Media Initiatives are outdated (2009 was last post) 5. Media connection is not always in depth experience.

External Opportunities 1. Many more possibilities of where poetry could be 1. 2. 2. 3. Chicago building new space Reaching smaller audiences vs. the current focus of largest audience possible 4. Focusing on children to instill love of poetry Threats Endowment limits budget based on the economy Survey results include report that poetry is boring

integrated into media.

 Current Audience = active, engaged adults who participate in a

variety of leisure and social activities

70% below 55 years old 73% with children 80% of past readers found poetry boring or difficult to understand Exposure is the first step to reach the widest audience possible of

people who otherwise wouldnt experience poetry.

 99% incidentally encountered poetry 81% reported reading or listening when encountered

 Who Cares about poetry? 90% of American readers! Poetry is for EVERYONE Poetry offers many benefits:

Solace Comfort entertainment Mind expanding An escape Inspiration Helps you understand yourself and others.

 To reach a new audience for poetry

Put poetry in peoples pockets.

Help people overcome their bad experiences of poetry from their past Increase poetry's presence on the internet Create new opportunities for incidental exposure

 Aims to achieve an enhanced presence for poetry in each of the

major traditional media channels--print (newspapers, general and special interest magazines), radio, television, film, out -of-home-and new-media technologies and venues as they evolve. Through a variety of collaborations, the Foundation invests in poetry programming to reach the American public across the full media spectrum.

PBS Newshour American Life in Poetry Poetry Everywhere Poetry Tours The Writers Almanac Readers Digest Classical Baby Poetry Radio Project Poetry Mobile Application Social Media

Poetry Everywhere PBS Stations

Classical Baby - HBO

 Audio & Podcasts, Video Users can bookmark and share YouTube Channel: only 44 videos with 304 subscribers

 Harriet blog: dedicated to

featuring vibrant online discussions of poetry and poetics.

The Learning Lab: online

resources for teachers, students, and learners

Sign up to receive bi-weekly

updates and feature stories via email

 Based on the survey results, the Poetry

Foundation realized that their website was an untapped medium for reaching new audiences In 2009, the Poetry Foundation contracted Tierra Innovations, Inc. for $354,722 Developed the mobile app, a content management system (CMS), a new layout for the Audio & Podcasts and Video sections of the website, and The Learning Lab

 In total, the Poetry Foundation paid $1,338,138 to develop and

maintain their site in 2009

The re-design attracted 3.5 million unique visitors to the site and 1.5

million podcast downloads

The website also provided users access to over 9,000 poems, an

increase from the 6,000 available in the 2007 archive

In 2009, the website and other media channels garnered $38,872 in

advertising revenue for the Foundation

 American Life in Poetry, a free weekly column featuring

contemporary American poems, is nationally syndicated to 4 million readers in more than 60 publications every week
The Writers Almanac, a radio program that recounts this

day in history and reads a poem or two, is heard by more than 2 million listeners on more than 300 public radio stations and XM Satellite Radio every day
Poetry Foundations YouTube channel:

the most viewed video was posted 3 years ago and has 12,788 views to date
22,183 followers on Twitter

 In 2011, John Barr stated that the Poetry Foundation reached 19

million new poetry readers in 2010

Their website had 4.5 million unique visitors last year 365,000 students participated in the 2010 Poetry Out Loud

competition

 Media director monitors and reports on the Media Initiative The director receives a $74,000 salary to develop poetry outreach

programs for a variety of media channels and oversee American Life in Poetry, the weekly poetry column
The Foundation also employs six people to maintain and produce

content for the website, including an editor, web producer, and permissions coordinator

 New building cost: $21 million In 2006, conducted $700,000 study on Americans views towards

poetry
Annual website upkeep: $1 million annually Poetry Out Loud competition: $50,000 per year The foundation has a budget of $7 million per year received through

the Ruth Lilly endowment

 Reduce the dichotomy

between the mission and the look/feel of the Poetry Foundations materials
Incorporate more modern

forms of poetry such as rap, or even twitter

Make more use of multimedia

tools like YouTube but be more adventurous in what is explored and in the animation/voiceover work

Questions? Comments?