Insideout Literary Arts Project

Narrative for 990 (fy2023) Insideout serves the community year-round through in-school, afterschool and public programming. Our 2022/23 programming year was particularly exciting as we introduced a new staffing structure; leaned into the social-emotional benefits of poetry and creative writing; enhanced communtiy partnerships; andn invigorated our programs for a post-covid audience. In total, we served 3,803 students in 29 schools, published 25 individual anthologies of student writing; engaged 211 teens with after-school workshops at 14 sites; and partnered with 44 organizations to present workshops, performances, and public art to upwards of 1,600 people across metro-detroit. We are particularly proud of the success of our first post-covid teen poetry slam - which saw attendance close to pre-pandemic levels and confirmed the absolute hunger young people have for these types of experiences. It created an empowering forum for youth to bravely and passionately perform works they have been perfecting for months, with five winners awarded slots in our performance troupe. After six months of in - depth coaching, mentoring, and regional performance opportunities, these empowered young people will be invited to serve on the Insideout youth advisory board (yab) to help influence program planning and decision making. The 2022 yab reviewed our website, digital marketing, and fundraising materials to check organizational bias, ensure positive imagery, and capture the full spectrum of experiences. In march 2023, we launched our first poetry-con - an all-day, teen-focused comference - to link Michigan youth with national touring poets for interactive writing workshops, open mic performances, communtiy building activities, and more. It brought 65 students together for a master class with macarthur genius hanif abduraquib and resulted in a cumlminating public performance in which hanif shared the stage with Insideout's youth performance troupe and wes matthews, a recent alum who is the current philadelphia youth poet laureate. Our in-school work was just as successful. It created jobs for 35 teaching artists and improved the academic and social well-being of students across detroit. We were particularly proud of our ability to empower students with opportunities to work with acclaimed national touring poets mahogany jones and nandi comer, each of whom completed an in-school residency and shared the stage with local performers during our public sonnet slam community event. Nandi comer is one of Insideout's first program graduates and in 2023 was named Michigan's first poet laureate since the 1950s. (the partnership with shakespeare in detroit saw attendance double to 150 in 2022.) We were honored to be chosen by the detroit public schools community district to support their detroit perspectives Project - a major initiative designed to revise the schools' high school english language Arts curriculum to be more engaging, culturally responsive, and anti-racist. We have been partnering with the district since our inception and are thrilled to be hired for this advisory role. Insideout's broader poetry for the people community events reached 569 youth and 1,600 adults with a dynamic series of public activities that culminated with if the river could sing, a partnership that brought together 12 organizations, five poets, five musical acts, 16 student poets, two poetry contest winners, and an audience of 300 to celebrate the power and beauty of the riverfront. We continued robust collaborations with the detroit zoological society, audubon society, and detroit institute of Arts, among others, and established new relationships with brilliant detroit, children's center, and affirmations. As an organization, Insideout strengthened capacity, increased visibility, and improved its balance sheet. We reorganized staff and teaching artist roles for maximum efficiency and developed new mechanisms to better support their growth. At the same time, we cultivated new board members, improved marketing, and increased revenues.