artPontiac’s president Stephanie Pete is hopeful an upcoming redesign of the organization’s digital presence will help improve operations and begin to reconnect the nonprofit with the arts community after a tumultuous past few years.

In February, the MRC Pontiac awarded the organization $36,000 in provincial funding from stream two of the Fonds des régions et ruralités to redesign its website.

The grant was announced at that month’s council of mayors meeting, alongside a $73,000 chunk of money the MRC will allot to repairs to the Stone School building in Portage du Fort, which it owns but leases to artPontiac.

Pete, who was named president in Jan. 2024, said when she joined the organization she was surprised at how outdated the website was. “Our website is very awkward, and it just didn’t have a consistent strategy,” she said.

In the press release announcing the planned redesign, she elaborated on the need for an overhaul.

“For artPontiac, establishing a modern and professional online presence is essential in today’s digital landscape to effectively promote and sell its initiatives and products,” Pete said.

“A well-crafted website, along with active social media engagement, will enhance visibility, improve communication with stakeholders, and increase participation in various events and programs.”

She said in an interview the last year has been challenging as the board is trying to pick up the pieces of an organization she said was “in crisis,” lacking volunteer numbers and a cohesive strategy forward.

“artPontiac is no different than any other nonprofit that’s dealing with volunteer burnout after the pandemic,” she said. “Since the pandemic it was a struggle to get communities back engaged in activities.”

To make matters worse, Pete said, communication with the former administration has been difficult, making it hard for the board to get access to crucial details such as banking information. She said as the board set out to correct those issues, they referred to their efforts as “putting out fires.”

“That ‘putting out fires’ was preoccupying us from providing our services that year,” adding that the work prevented the organization from offering programming at the Stone School.

She said the past year has been spent re-tooling the organization and figuring out the best strategies for community engagement, financial recovery as well as fundraising, which she said are their main objectives going forward.

The organization applied for a grant from Culture Outaouais, through which they were able to hire an arts consultant with country-wide experience helping rural arts organizations. “That was one of our strategies, to find partners and orgs that could work with us,” she said, listing Culture Outaouais, the MRC Pontiac, and Shawville-based community development nonprofit CEDEC.

Arts consultant Jane Needles said the issues artPontiac is facing, including a decline in volunteers, are not unique to the organization.

“It is a very common thing, especially in the [rural] regions. They don’t have the same resources to be able to have what ultimately every arts org should have, which is a paid administrator.”

Needles said after some planning and deliberation they decided it is important the organization improve communication with its members and volunteers if it is to be sustainable.

“The whole past year has been taken to carefully rethink what artPontiac is, what it was, and the direction [it] wants to go [ . . . ] Stephanie has put together a very clear direction plan for one year,” she said, adding that membership renewal forms went out to existing and past members last week.

In those letters, Needles said, is an explanation of the organization’s pause in programming and a brief summary of what it has been up to.

“[It’s] just so that we can restructure, rethink, and build a foundation to return artPontiac to where it was 15 to 20 years ago.”

Pete said membership is down to a quarter of what it was in the beginning of 2023, a trend she is hoping to reverse in part through updates to the website and online store.

“Our digital transformation, especially the website, will improve communication,” she said. “We’re talking about how to facilitate interactions between our members and the public. [ . . . ] We’re floating the idea of a community bulletin where these conversations can be facilitated.”

Volunteer challenges not new

artPontiac founder and former president Dale Shutt said the lack of volunteers was a problem right up until she left the organization in 2019.

“We had a really good run over many years, where we had a large and dedicated cadre of volunteers. But then a whole bunch of us got to be in our 70s and we were tired of devoting what amounted to a part-time job, and started to drop out,” she said, adding that near the end of her tenure there were only two volunteers available to organize the shop, the gallery and the shows.

“artPontiac has faced a [ . . . ] lack of artists willing to put in the time,” she said. “Without that volunteer involvement it just becomes really, really difficult to do anything.”

She said with the aging of the Pontiac population and the turn toward more digital forms of entertainment, she is not certain if it is possible to turn the organization around.

“What it’s going to require is artists and community members. [ . . . ] And I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” Shutt said.

“A lot of younger artists are turning to other methods of promoting and selling their work, online methods,” she said, adding that from what she has seen Pete is doing an admirable job.

Pete, who has prior experience on boards, said she now knows first-hand the value of having a continuity plan from one board to the next.

“When you have a full exodus and you don’t have a plan, there tends to be a lot of stress and a lot of panic,” she said.

“We can’t have the operations of an entire org resting on the shoulders of two people anymore. We need more member, community and volunteer engagement.”

Stone school renovations

The Stone School is still under lease by the artPontiac and available to be used at any time, confirmed MRC Pontiac strategic communications counselor Francis Beausoleil in an emailed statement last week.

“There is some exterior stonework scheduled to be done this spring,” he wrote, adding that certain renovations were recommended for regular maintenance of the building.

“We are in the process of obtaining quotes to see exactly how far we can go with our maintenance and upgrades for 2025,” he explained, noting funds must be spent and renovations should be completed before the end of Mar. 2026.

artPontiac will be hosting two upcoming roundtable chats, hosted via Zoom, for members and non-members alike. The topic for the first one, which will be held on Apr. 16 from 7-8 p.m., is artPontiac’s artist residency program. The second, to be held Apr. 23 from 7-8 p.m., will tackle fundraising.

The organization welcomes anyone interested to participate in these meetings, to sign up for a membership, or to volunteer.