HOLLAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC

Holland Symphony seeks to impact the greater Holland community by engaging the entire community with: 1) a variety of orchestral concerts, 2) educational opportunities for the communities we serve through the three youth orchestras as well as many other workshops, lectures, printed materials and chamber music, 3) advocacy for the arts through outreach performances, lectures, and collaborations with many different groups. The Carnegie Hall Link Up program has been a successful new initiative for the orchestra. Almost 1900 students participated for the second year!

Goals for the next 3-5 years include: 1) long range artistic planning which drives the administrative planning, 2) civic engagement and education with the community we serve 3) continuing to develop collaborations with other organizations both within and beyond our geographical community.

The Holland Symphony Strategic Plan is updated annually by all teams with our mission central to all decisions. Following this process the Executive Committee reviews the work of the teams, follows through on goals and strategies not met and sets the annual goals of the organization presented to the Board of Directors. This process has worked well for years past and keeps the goals and strategies current and fresh. It also has an evaluative conclusion to the year's work. The July Board meeting is annually devoted to strategic thinking and planning in a different location and retreat style.

The current staff, board, and musicians are stable. The organization is on firm financial footing with financial reserves of 100% of current budget. The working board is diverse and engaged. The organization is very involved in the community, has many partnerships on a regular basis (see the annual report), has a strong youth orchestra system, and is constantly seeking new and better methods of doing business within the budgetary framework of the organization. It is my feeling that we are positioned well for the future. HSO has moved its office to an diverse building of non-profits with double the space and a dedicated rehearsal room for our educational programs. Financial reserves enable the organization to risk adding new programs such as Link Up Concerts through Carnegie Hall.

For the next two years HSO is one of 15 selected arts and culture groups within the West Michigan area working with Michael Kaiser and the DeVos Capacity Building program housed at the University of Maryland at no cost to HSO. This process is a two year process of audits of every aspect of the board, governance, staff and artistic product resulting in an updated strategic plan. The collaborative possibilities coming out of this process will be invaluable as well as a professional review of our current strategic plan.

We have continued to end our fiscal year with a positive balance in spite of the pandemic which all of us have been dealt with. Artistically, the orchestra has grown in the breadth of its repertoire by adding works of underrepresented composers. Our artistic process guides the rest of the organization as all teams and the board study how best to be vibrant as an orchestra to our community. Money, staff, and depth of the interest in a small city limit how rapidly some of the goals can be achieved. This is a slow and steady process. Michael Kaiser, DeVos Capacity Building consultant, was astonished at the quality of the repertoire of our "community" orchestra. It is not what he expected. He said HSO was programming at the level of a regional orchestra well above our budget size. He also said that obviously HSO was meeting the expectations of the community with a 80% subscription rate for our main venue which is very unusual.

My goal as CEO has been to maintain a stable organization as we have struggled with the pandemic and the postponement of almost all of our season concerts. We have been successful in completing and pivoting in many areas as the lack of in person audiences has kept the orchestra from live performances. One of the benefits of the pandemic is the zoom connections and hybrid meeting possibilities. Learning to pivot is another. Another is working from many locations effectively.

Carnegie Hall Link Up program has been added with two fully subscribed concerts planned FREE to 4th grade students in local schools. A new updated website has been launched. During the pandemic, HSO began a new CRM and ticketing system making use of time we had to launch this massive project. We are still learning and have almost six months into the new ticketing system seeing the benefits and greater success at reports.