What will BAE be up to in 2030?
Executive director and cofounder, Ben Houghton, alongside founding donor and board president, Catherine Cantrell, addressing the room at the annual BAE donor thank you party.
One of my favorite traditions at the start of every year is the party thrown by our board president, Catherine Cantrell, in gratitude and thanks to the donors who make our work possible. While “president” may be her official title, she prefers to be called the “princess of appreciation” and takes great pride in making sure that our relationships with donors include moments where they can leave their wallets at home and connect with BAE on a personal level.
Donors who support our LGBTQ+ youth programming get to meet donors who support our programs in India. Gala attendees who just love anything Broadway get to learn more about our educational programs and the impact the Broadway community is having on arts education. There were a lot of “I had no idea BAE did all that!” exclamations echoing through the room throughout the afternoon.
Having so many supporters in one place was also a great opportunity for us to reflect on the past six years and where we hope to be six years from now (2030!!! Ahhh!!). Six years ago - before we’d even incorporated - cofounder Katy Pfaffl and I were clear about our mission. We were going to use arts education to make the world a better place for underserved kids, but how we were going to achieve that mission was still fuzzy.
How would we find school and community partners to work with? How would we create safe , nurturing, and trauma-responsive environments for young people? How would we build an arts curriculum that would develop a sense of pride in young people who might see the various intersections of their marginalized identities as liabilities instead of assets? How would we bring the Broadway community into our organization and give our students opportunities to perform alongside Broadway stars in world-class venues and community-based events? And, finally, how would we instill a sense of purpose and a belief in a better tomorrow for our students through arts-based projects?
I wish I could say we were able to answer all of these questions before we got started all those years ago, but now, looking back, I am so proud of the answers we found along the way and the new questions those answers gave birth to, such as: How are we going to effectively measure and communicate the impact we are having all around the world? How are we setting healthy boundaries around the role of a teaching artist vs. the role of a therapist? How do we plan to show up for our students while remembering to show up for ourselves?
And there have been so many incredible milestones to reflect on: Milestones like hiring our first full-time employee. Milestones like one of our first students, Hemant (who we met when he was 10 at the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project), getting accepted into Princeton University. Milestones like being awarded funding from the New York City Council’s LGBT Caucus in recognition of our LGBTQIA+ inclusive curriculum. Milestones like working with the Broadway community to raise over a million dollars in one year!
What milestones should we hit in the next 6 years? I’ve got plenty of ideas, but I’d love to hear from you, too! What are your aspirations for BAE for the rest of the 20’s? Let us know in the form below:
