Missoula Writing Collaborative
Missoula Writing Collaborative
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About this organization
Mission
TEACHING LITERARY COMPETENCE, CRITICAL THINKING AND CULTURAL AWARENESS THROUGH CREATIVE WRITING.
About
Missoula Writing Collaborative (MWC) teachers are professional writerspeople who have made writing their lifes work. They have written and published many books, poems, stories, essays, and articles, receiving prestigious awards and prizes for their work. MWC Artistic Director, Sheryl Noethe, whose most recent collection, Grey God Big Sky (FootHills Publishing, 2013), won the High Plain Award in 2014. Honored with a Missoula Cultural Council Achievement Award in 2004 for her area teaching, Noethe was named Montanas Poet Laureate in 2011. MWC Executive Director, Caroline Patterson, was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University and has received fellowships from the Montana Arts Council, the San Francisco Foundation, as well as the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. Her story collection, Ballet at the Moose Lodge, was published in 2017, and she has published work in anthologies including Montana Noir (2017), Bright Bones (2018), and A Million Acres (2019). The school year of 2018-2019 was another year of exciting growth for the Missoula Writing Collaborative. We received enough support through grants and financial donations to support 12-week writing residencies in every Missoula County Public School fourth grade. We also funded writing residencies for third-grade through high school-aged children in the greater Missoula area. These include locations ranging from one-room schoolhouses to large multi-level classrooms throughout western Montana. Since 1994, we have brought creative writing to more than 42,000 children in thirty-one schools in western Montana. For January 2019 to December 2019, MWC received a $15,000 grant for its work on the Flathead Reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. In 2018, the MWC was also awarded a Montana Center for the Book Prize, as well as a Library of Congress State Literacy Award. MWC Writing Residencies: In addition to serving nine Missoula public schools, one Missoula middle school and one high school, the tendrils of MWC extend northeast through Ovando, Potomac and Seeley-Swan schools; northwest to Arlee, Pablo, and St. Ignatius schools; and south into Lolo, Florence-Carlton, Victor and Stevensville schools. Our writers in residence have taught poetry to nearly 2,225 children in 2018-2019. Our writers completed anthologies and conducted readings for 30 schools in locations ranging from school gymnasiums to the two-room school located above a cow pasture (the Woodman School), the Hanging Art Gallery (the Arlee Elementary), and the Burns Street Bistro (the Lowell School). In addition, students from Lewis and Clark, Russell, and Rattlesnake elementary schools read on Montana Public Radios Pea Green Boat. MWC currently posts Monday poems featuring student work on our Facebook page. We also completed an overhaul of our website. Reservation Work: With the support of existing and new grantors, MWC was in five schools on the Flathead Reservation, including elementary school classrooms in Arlee, Pablo, St. Ignatius, Dixon, and Ronan. The student readings at each school were well attended by teachers, parents, and community members. We also worked with Ballet Beyond Boundaries to bring international ballet and folk dancers to reservation schools, where student watched dancers, then wrote poetry about the dance. Words with Wings:Our summer camp, which started in 2010, had its most successful seasons. A total of 83 campers ages 8 to 13 and 14-17 wrote ekphrastic poems (poems written in response to art) in collaboration with the Museum of Art & Culture and river poems with the Watershed Education Network. Our week-long teen writing workshop for ages 15 to 17 continued and students wrote music and poetry together. All students performed their work on Montana Public Radios Pea Green Boat. The final Words with Wings reading was held at the Missoula Book Festival, where students received their anthologies. Teen campers read original writing and songs on Montana Community Radio. Fiscal Sponsorship:MWC continues to be the fiscal sponsor for Free Verse, a highly effective program where writers teach writing to kids in juvenile detention centers in Montana. In fall 2019, Free Verse won a $2000 book award. Community Workshops:MWC hosted The Writers Room in March, a day where community members could take a workshop from MWC writers in downtown Missoula for a nominal fee. The event featured lunch with a writer discussing, writing techniques and an evening cocktail hour at Radius Gallery.We expanded this to a second, intensive fall workshop on November 3, and have 15 attendees who took 5-hour classes in fiction, memoir, and environmental writing. Community Events:We hosted readings, movies about Poets, poetry workshops, and even worked with a business to create poetry ice cream in April as part of National Poetry month. Students read on Montana Public Radio each Tuesday. We posted student poems on our Facebook page every day in April.
Interesting data from their 2020 990 filing
The non-profit's mission, as described in the filing, is “Teaching literary competence, critical thinking and cultural awareness through creative writing.”.
When describing its duties, they were characterized as: “Teaching literary competence, critical thinking and cultural awareness through creative writing.”.
- The non-profit has complied with legal regulations by reporting their state of operation as MT.
- The filing shows that the non-profit's address as of 2020 is PO BOX 9237, MISSOULA, MT, 59807.
- As of 2020, the non-profit has reported a total of 30 employees on their form.
- Does not operate a hospital.
- Does not operate a school.
- Does not collect art.
- Does not provide credit counseling.
- Does not have foreign activities.
- Is not a donor-advised fund.
- Is not a private foundation.
- Expenses are between $100,000 and $250,000.
- Revenue is between $100,000 and $250,000.
- Revenue less expenses is -$3,681.
- The compensation of the CEO of the organization is subject to review and approval by an independent body.
- The organization has 10 independent voting members.
- The organization was formed in 1995.
- The organization has a written policy that addresses conflicts of interest.
- The organization is required to file Schedule B.
- The organization is required to file Schedule O.
- The organization pays $173,291 in salary, compensation, and benefits to its employees.
- The organization pays $1,454 in fundraising expenses.
- The organization provides Form 990 to its governing body.
- The organization has minutes of its meetings.