I have an entrepreneurial spirit to me. I look at the big picture and break it down to the components to get it done. Setting a project goal and then planning the organizational and strategic steps to moving it forward is thoroughly interesting to me!
I have used my professional communications, technical, marketing and organizational skills to drive and support various community, arts, music and nonprofit initiatives while living in various cities.
Through founding, developing and working to manage nonprofit, educational or community based initiatives, I developed strong skills in administering projects through conducting project communications, nurturing community alliances and partnerships, writing project proposals and budget creation, grant writing, producing electronic, social media and digital media content, setting fundraising goals and running campaigns, devising strategic planning, and managing volunteers to name a few areas that I’ve handled.
A list of projects:
- Temple University Film Forum: A film speaker and screening series in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Jazz Program participation in the Next Generation Festival: TSU Jazz program students performed at several venues and programs during the Next Generation Festival in Monterey, California
- Renaissance Arts Network: a community arts and concerts series in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- CSSW: Children’s Songwriting Workshop: a community songwriting workshop for children in Millburn, New Jersey
- Women in Eclectic Music: a women’s music concert series in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Chicago
- Westbranch Community Arts Program: an art walk project in Houston, Texas
- Disaster Pet Locator: a free online database and website to assist reunite pet families after a disaster. I’m currently developing an executive summary that includes the mission, vision, organizational structure, budget, and additional components. Conceived of in Mexico City. To be established in Los Angeles, California
All these valuable learning experiences eventually led me to apply to the MS in Nonprofit Leadership degree program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice. Happily, I have been accepted into the program.
I’ve uploaded samples here that represent efforts to raise funds for various campaigns in disaster relief and planning, education, community associations and community arts.
Jazz Program participation in the Next Generation Festival
This first listing here is a proposal and budget that I developed and wrote during my tenure as a music student at TSU.
The proposal was shared with the University President, the Director of Development, several Deans and the Finance Office. I researched and wrote two budgets. The Director of the Jazz Program approved proposals and budgets to send to the University for funding. The proposal and larger budget of $49,796.00 received University approval and funding.
I assisted with sending fundraising requests to business and community members to assist with additional sponsorships for this and other events as well.
Earlier, I had conceived of and wrote a proposal to establish a TSU music academy where university music students would teach music classes to community members thereby creating work opportunities for the music department students.
Nonprofit Community Arts Initiatives
Renaissance Arts Network was a nonprofit community arts initiative I co-founded with Christopher Perri while living in West Philadelphia in 2001. An under-utilized park, a block away from where I lived sparked my and the other founder’s interest. The padlock on the gate kept this neighborhood jewel inaccessible to the community. We set out to not only honor the work of the park’s founder, but also to create programming where the community would come together and attend concerts and workshops by Philadelphia based artists.
We developed a series of community concerts and community arts workshops. I took on the responsibilities of a Program Director by overseeing all aspects of program development such as defining programs, recruiting and managing local artists and volunteers, creating budgets and artist contracts, outreach to local businesses, community associations, nonprofits, churches and media, fundraising and designing all publicity materials. We succeeded in gaining the support of the local community association and were invited to become board members. And so with this invitation, R.A.N. was given a fiscal home so that we could run the project under the nonprofit status of the community association.
The Philadelphia Orchestra was one of the nonprofits with which I cultivated a partnership. Working with the Orchestra, we agreed to produce several community concerts. I organized and executed the following tasks:
- Identified venues to include senior centers, churches and parks
- Reached out to many community-based leaders to host the concerts. All venues were very supportive and jumped on board to provide their spaces for the concerts. Secured locales were two churches, 1 day senior citizen center, 1 residential senior center and the corner park location that started the whole concept.
- Coordinated scheduling with all parties
- Managed email list of community member volunteers
- Designed flyers
- Recruited and managed volunteers
- Assisted with organizational tasks pre-concert
- Conducted concert audience attendance assessment
- Wrote press release
I’ve included a press release here for one of the concerts at one of the churches.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.juliamorenoperri.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/RANPR.pdf”]
During my time executing the delivery of R.A.N. programs, I received a scholarship to enroll in a class at Penn’s Continuing Education program – “Nonprofit Finances” which was the precursor to what is now a full graduate degree program at Penn.
Other Projects:
Produced for the Downey Symphony
Geomap technology project for the Texas Homeless Initiative. Listing of Texas resources for homeless services.