Ellen Munds speaks about the A B C's of running a storytelling festival on the national level.

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Interview #016 Ellen Munds, Executive Director of Arts Indiana.
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The A B C’s of Running Festival.

Ellen Munds Writes..
In this interview we cover how to;

  1. 1. Create your mission statement or why you want to do a festival
  2. 2. Determine your target audience
  3. 3. Details such as indoor or outdoor, specific site for an event, accessibility, design and traffic flow of the site
  4. 4. Artistic Elements
  5. 5. Marketing and Public Relations
  6. 6. Funding
  7. 7. Budget
  8. 8. Volunteers
  9. 9. Care and Feeding of the storytellers, sponsors and volunteers
  10. 10. Evaluation of your Festival.

This interview should be heard by all members of the national storytelling network who are interested in running or creating there own storytelling festival. Storytellers who are serious about working the festival circuit should consider this episode required listening.

Ellen Munds is the executive director of Storytelling Arts
of Indiana and one of three co-founders. She has served as the chair of the Organizer’s & Producers SIG, the chair of the Awards Committee and served as the State Liaison for the National Storytelling Network.

She writes about her organization;
Storytelling Arts of Indiana is a very unique organization in the storytelling community. The board of directors is comprised of individuals from the community with special skill sets (not storytellers), we are not a membership organization and that we have year round programming.

Programs include:

Hoosier Storytelling Festival,
Storytelling Series and Special Events
Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship and Premiere
Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories in collaboration with the Indiana Historical Society
Weekly storytelling at Riley Children’s Hospital
The As I Recall Storytelling Guild
Family Programs in collaborations with other Not-for-profits
Storytelling Performances in the Neighborhood Parks in collaboration with Indy Parks & Recreation
JawBreakers
Newest program: Using Storytelling as an Educational Tool: Teaching English/Language Arts Indiana State Standards, Grades K – 5 (Workshop and a CD of 50 activities)

We have a book coming out in celebration of our 20th birthday, The Scenic Route: Stories from the Heartland published by the Indiana Historical Society Press. And we are kicking off a $100,000 Endowment Campaign: The Story Lives On in October, 2007.

More on Storyarts in Indianapolis, Indiana.