All Posts By

Natalie Scherlong


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Bi-Weekly Recap: January 11, 2021

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Greetings WESTAF trustees and colleagues: Welcome to the first biweekly recap of 2021. I know I don’t need to tell you this, but it has already been a year that will be seared forever into our memories, and we’re not even halfway through January. At WESTAF, we’ve been forging ahead with our work, even as our government was under attack by domestic terrorists and rioters. For me, frankly, it has been hard not to just consume cable news and doom scroll on my device, even though that makes me feel worse, and there are other important things to do. But,…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: December 14, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Greetings WESTAF trustees: Happy to be checking in with you once again! This will be my last biweekly of 2020 (I’m going to skip over the one that would have come up right before the new year and give you a break!). The next biweekly should land in your inboxes around January 11. This week, we were also able to confirm our February meeting dates (February 3-4), which had been left as TBD before the pandemic while we determined whether we should do another DC advocacy trip or meet someplace in the west. Well, the pandemic proceeds apace (albeit with…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: November 30, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Greetings, WESTAF Trustees: Really hope everyone had a safe and relaxing long holiday weekend! Here’s a bit of an abbreviated biweekly—let’s get right to it: EXPANDED ROLE FOR DAVID HOLLAND, DIRECTOR OF IMPACT AND PUBLIC POLICY (CG) You already heard this big news last week, but in case you missed it, here’s the announcement again! Our colleague David Holland will be assuming a more expansive role at WESTAF, under the newly revised title of director of impact and public policy. In addition to his current portfolio leading WESTAF’s Alliances, Advocacy and Public Policy (AAP) department and serving as an advisor…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: November 16, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Hello WESTAF trustees: Still happily recalling our October trustees virtual meetings and gatherings. They were productive and a lot of fun. We continue to navigate a bizarre world, even as we experience moments of beauty and hope. Virtual works great, but I am rooting for a time, hopefully soon, when we can be together again, in person, in a special western place. For now though, here’s what’s up at WESTAF: WELCOME TO NEW BOARD MEMBER TATIANA GANT (CG) Her nomination being ratified at the October board meeting, we’re thrilled to welcome new trustee Tatiana Gant, executive director of the Montana…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: November 2, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Dear WESTAF board of trustees: Thank you all so, so much for the generous allotment of your valuable time and for the thoughts and feedback at the various meetings and gatherings of the WESTAF annual board of trustees meeting last week. We will be following up with a few requested items this week from our discussions. Mostly though, I wanted to hold the space this week to send positive signals for the most important election of our lifetime. It was really wonderful to be with you as a community for the lead up to this week. For now, I’ll leave…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: October 19, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Greetings Trustees: We’re gearing up for the trustee meetings next Wednesday, October 28 and Thursday October 29 and we can’t wait to see you there…on Zoom! We’ve got a packed agenda and we’re very excited about what we have in store. Before we dig in, Deborah Jordy, the executive director of Denver’s SCFD,  wanted arts leaders in Colorado to share this Opinion Piece in The Washington Post with their boards and networks about the role conservatives could play in helping the performing arts to survive this pandemic. It’s not a perfect op-ed — a bit too urban-centric/coastal elite for everyone…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: October 5, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Hello WESTAF board of trustees: Welcome to the first biweekly of FY21. As you can guess, the biggest news of the past two weeks was learning about Chrissy Deal’s departure from WESTAF and her new role at the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. As I mentioned in my 9/23 email to you all with this news, Chrissy has not just transformed WESTAF through her leadership during her seven years serving the organization, most recently as Director of Social Responsibility and Inclusion, she has devoted much of her career advocating for greater representation of communities of color in the nonprofit arts, culture, and philanthropy…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: September 21, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Hello again WESTAF trustees: Well, we’ve come to the very last biweekly of FY20. The first half of the fiscal year began promisingly enough. The second half? Well, you know. A global pandemic, an overdue reckoning with racial injustice, a gasping economy, catastrophic western climate fires and now the passing of RBG, a giant of jurisprudence, and all of the troubling implications that this represents to a democracy already dangling by a thread. Pablo Neruda said “You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t keep Spring from coming,” so let’s always let hope be our anchor while we focus…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: September 8, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Greetings WESTAF Trustees: Hope everyone was able to relax, take stock, and feel safe and during this past Labor Day weekend. It’s really very busy at WESTAF right now as we head towards the last few weeks of our fiscal year so let’s jump right in, shall we? JULY FINANCIALS (AH) The July financials were reviewed by the Executive Committee at their meeting on August 26 and are presented here for your review: July Cash Summary — a snapshot of cash income and expenses as of July 31st; July Financial Memo — accompanies the cash summary footnotes; Aug End of…

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Bi-Weekly Recap: August 24, 2020

By Board of Trustees Bi-Weekly Recap

Greetings WESTAF Trustees: This is the first of just three more biweeklies to go until the end of this fiscal year. It’s hard to overstate the shocking whiplash we’ve experienced between the first and second halves of this year due to the sweeping, jarring impact of the pandemic. COVID is like a tidal wave, but instead of demolishing roads, trees and buildings across space, it has obliterated plans, hopes and dreams across time. Visualizing a FY21 budget in the face of such ongoing uncertainty has been quite a task, but the team rose to the challenge, and a FY21 budget…

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