Clayworks Donations

Since the inception of Clayworks nearly 20 years ago, we have promoted ceramic arts, advanced ceramics artists and students, and enriched communities throughout the region. Clayworks continues to engage and inspire diverse populations in the discovery, creation, and celebration of the ceramic arts, and we are committed to envisioning new ways to provide creative opportunities for everyone. We are grateful to our donors, artists, students, instructors, and staff for making our vision possible. Clayworks has accomplished all it has with the support and dedication of our community, which continues to grow and diversify each year. In the last year alone, Clayworks provided free ceramics classes to nearly 2,000 students, who would not have otherwise been exposed to the ceramic arts, at libraries, community centers, senior centers, and other locations. Clayworks also provided no cost or low-cost ceramic arts education to more than 1,000 students in CMS schools, to survivors recovering from trauma through the Promise Resource Network, to under-resourced students through Freedom Schools, and to refugee and immigrant children through OurBridge. Clayworks’ impact has grown in leaps and bounds, and donor support is critical to this achievement.

Clayworks began offering the benefit of priority registration for ceramics classes over 15 years ago as a show of our appreciation donors’ contributions to Clayworks increasing impact. The Donor Priority Registration Program, as currently structured, also resulted in an unintended and inequitable consequence. Simply stated, as demand for Clayworks ceramics classes skyrocketed in recent years, donating effectively became a pre-requisite to registering for a class at Clayworks at any level – beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Clayworks’ Board of Directors raised this concern and reviewed it at length, including input from staff, donors, existing students, waitlisted students, and advisors to non-profit organizations. Donors and students provided thoughtful, creative, and heartfelt feedback on how best to improve equity in our class offerings. Clayworks takes that feedback seriously. Responses included, for example, addressing absenteeism in existing classes, fully utilizing existing space, exploring opportunities to increase capacity, and reviewing programs and artist studio offerings. These ideas were presented and discussed extensively by the Board of Directors at a recent two-day strategic planning meeting. As an initial step to restoring equity to accessibility of ceramics classes, Clayworks is revising the Donor Priority Registration Benefit with a tiered approach, as detailed below, effective immediately.