Reduce the Literacy Gap through Dance - USA

The support GlobalGiving has granted us continues to grow Ballet and Books. Since our last report, we have seen so much development and new wins for our program!

Financially, Ballet and Books has made major strides in recent months by not only hosting an overwhelmingly successful fundraiser but also being awarded two substantial grants. Our annual spring fundraiser surpassed expectations thanks to a supportive National community as well as the collective efforts of our Executive Team and Chapter Leadership. We were thrilled to be awarded both an  ArtStart grant through the Ohio Arts Council as well as a grant through the Tompkins County Community Foundation.

We have also been building partnerships with new partner organizations to support current programming as well as the expansion of programming. Some of our budding partnerships include Once Upon a Dance and Little Free Library. Once Upon a Dance a West Coast-based, mother-daughter, author and dancer team works with us to provide their dance-centered books to the children of each Ballet & Books chapter. Through collaboration with Heather Butts, board member of Little Free Library, our bookWhen We Readwill be placed in several Little Free Libraries around New York’s five boroughs as part of the Read In Color campaign throughout the summer. We are currently drafting plans with them to put on a series of masterclasses at universities associated with our chapters in support of Ballet & Books. 

Through active outreach in recent months, we have more than doubled our dancewear donor partnerships. We now partner with two notable dancewear distributors, Discount Dance Supply and Body Wrappers. As well, we have added to our non-profit dancewear donation organizations, including a partnership with Texas-based Dance Fairies. 

At present we have two new chapters in development–an interuniversity chapter through UC Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University, and a chapter through the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In April the Cincinnati Business Courier interviewed our Executive Director regarding the soon-to-launch UC/NKU chapter, publishing the story shortly thereafter: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2023/05/05/literacy-nonprofit-ballet-books-cincinnati-open.html. The UMICH chapter is being developed and will operate in collaboration with the university’s Department of Dance as an academic course for credit. Both chapters are slated to launch this fall. 

This fall we look forward to presenting a Ballet & Books workshop at the National Dance Education Organization’s annual conference. NDEO is a leading organization in the dance education field and we are overwhelmingly honored that our application has been accepted for presentation at this annual convening of dance educators from across the country. At this event we anticipate formally announcing the translation of our book, When We Read, into Spanish, Arabic, and Mandarin in order to make the book more accessible to more children. Translation efforts are currently underway and are expected to be ready for review by the time we present in October.

Looking back on these past few years, we have come such a long way with the support of Colgate and GlobalGiving. As we look ahead to the future, we’re so excited to continue growing our impact and closing the literacy gap one community at a time. You have not only helped support us up until this point, but have also given us the resources to begin supporting ourselves moving forward. Ballet and Books would not be possible without you!