Portland Creative Conference

Today the Board of Directors for Keeping the Beat,  an Oregon-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity that supports arts programs in Oregon, announced that they agreed to be the fiscal sponsor of the new Creative Conference in Portland.

The Creative Conference planning committee and KTB leadership see strong alignment around supporting and celebrating creativity and the arts in a variety of forms.

From the beginning of the process to develop a new Creative Conference I thought it was important to structure it as a nonprofit community-based project like it was before.  We accomplished this goal with today’s vote by the KTB Board.  This milestone in the planning process means the Creative Conference can move forward with accepting tax-exempt donations and sponsorships to help manifest the event.

Great news! At the Creative Conference meeting yesterday we reached consensus for moving forward.

The primary driver is that after a generous pledge of individual financial support by the new planning group (made up of several Board members and volunteers from the original Creative Conference along with some new blood), along with sponsorship commitments from the Oregon Media Production Association and Greger Peterson Associates, we have the funds we need to put the deposit down to hold the venue for a September 6th design-focused conference in conjunction with Inverge: the interactive convergence conference, happening on Sept. 4+5.

The next steps include committee meetings for sponsorship, program and marketing.

Thanks to everyone who has agreed to help bootstrap the event so far.  We will need a lot of additional financial support to make it happen with the same quality of the previous event, but we are off to a great start and I am confident that we have the momentum we need to pull it off.

One of the things that I enjoyed most about the first iteration of the Portland Creative Conference in the 90’s was how the creative community came together to make it happen.  The collaborative work of the event’s Board, production crew, volunteers, in-kind service providers and sponsors was something like magic.

I’m happy to report that as we work on a re-launch of a similar event that spirit is being rekindled!  The most obvious early example is that many people in the new planning group (several Board alumni from the original event plus several new faces) have personally pledged $100 toward the deposit required to hold the venue for the proposed Sept. 6th date.

If you are interested in helping out in any way (personal contribution, company sponsorship, in-kind service, etc.), please contact us.