Searching for Grants or Fundraising possibilities
  • Adam Schwend
    Posts: 203
    Does anyone know of any grants or fundraising opportunities for developing music programs. We've got a very supportive staff and clergy at our parish, but, like everywhere, budgets are tight. We'd like to raise a bit of money to offset the cost to the parish. Not to mention, the electronic organ is on its way out and something will need to be done about that soon, as well.

    Thanks for all your help in advance,

    Adam
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    1. Figure out exactly what you want to spend money on.
    2. Itemize it into specific, purchasable chunks.
    3. Invite your parishioners to sponsor specific things: a new hymnal, a handbell, an organ rank, a whatever.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    Calvin College and Yale's Institute of Sacred Music both have grant programs for parishes.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    OCP, OCP, OCP!!!!
  • Lissa
    Posts: 4
    I know that elitists everywhere will despise me, but I do love OCP....
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Ah, grasshopper....

    Those are not elitists, those are people who love the church and recognize that over the last fifty years the church, like concert halls, has decided to cater to things people really, really like rather than things that enrich their entire lives.

    While catering to the people draws great crowds, does it save their souls? Do they leave church happy and joyful or as better people, better prepared to take on life in the secular world, being examples to others instead of being like them.

    Priests, if they could marry, have kids, mortgages, a house in the country, and all the things that lay people can have could be just like us, as could nuns! What a concept.

    Priests become priests, nuns become nuns not because they are elitist, but because they want to be better.

    Would Spencer Tracy been better off being a soldier in the trenches instead of appearing in movies that encouraged Americans around the world to work against evil forces? Was he being an elitist by being an actor instead of a foot soldier?

    We all have a place. Mine is not in the happy-clappy world of feel-good Catholic music, just as it is not in the world of happy-clappy Protestant music - which is the model that the Catholic church in many cases has chosen to follow.

    I'm not a protestant. I don't want to be a protestant. I am thrilled that Anglicans are being welcomed into the church. I cannot see Methodists or Lutherans ever coming over.

    But don't be an elitist by calling me an elitist.

    Aside from all that, welcome to the group. On your job listing tell us where you are willing to go to work. Within 30 miles of home? Any place for a job? That'll help.
  • Lissa
    Posts: 4
    Thanks for the welcome! I like OCP because it is very easy to use.
    Speaking for my tastes personally, I am pretty traditional (and try to just go along with everyone else! Ha!).
    I actually have a passion for contemporary classical sacred music.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Part, Part, Part....
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    I lost a bit of respect for OCP a few years ago when they decided to drop the Mortem Tuam from the Chant Mass in Breaking Bread. When I contacted them about this oversight, I was told that it was merely because the Mortem Tuam hadn't received enough votes. Other settings had perhaps 3 or 4 options, but Chant, well, ... didn't get enough votes.

    Nope, it wasn't there the next year either. Still not there in 2011.

    Yes, this is driven by popularity. Not by what's best for our spiritual development.
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