Strategic Plan 2025-2030
When Community MusicWorks completed its last strategic plan, we were moving toward a long-held dream: the creation of a state-of-the-art CMW Center in the heart of our beloved West End neighborhood in Providence, RI.
Now that this dream has become a reality, we find ourselves at the start of a new chapter—one marked by extraordinary possibility and which carries a responsibility: to ensure the Center is a welcoming, equitable, and responsive gathering place.
As we live fully into this new space, we ask: How can we deepen the ways in which this new home serves our communities?
With this in mind, the 2025–2030 strategic plan focuses on expanding programs in new ways, diversifying funding streams, strengthening internal operations, and growing capacity. And beneath these objectives is a deeper intention—to steward the Center as a resource that authentically reflects our values and that serves as an anchor in our community.
The work ahead is both practical and visionary. It is about sustaining an organization—but also about sustaining a way of being together in the world. In the midst of the current climate of divisiveness and challenges to values of equity and collective care, we believe that making music together—and building community through that practice—is our greatest act of resilience and hope.
Goals 2025-2030
Goal 1: Nurture the Next Generation of Artists and Leaders through Transformative Music Education and Performance — enrich the student experience by deepening musical learning, leadership opportunities, and community connections, while also expanding access so that more young people can participate in programs that prepare them to shape a more just and connected world.
Strategies include:
- Increasing enrollment across existing programs and through the creation of new programs.
- Offering new program opportunities to expand students’ musical fluency and to support students’ personal growth and development.
- Expanding opportunities for CMW alumni to stay engaged and connected.
- Supporting developing parallel practices in other communities through the MusicWorks Network and expanding participation in leadership opportunities across the nation.
Goal 2: Establish the CMW Center as a Third Space for Community Connection and Creative Expression — animate our new Center as a welcoming and accessible gathering place where all neighbors belong and have equitable access to music.
Strategies include:
- Creating short-term musical programs and workshops that invite neighbors into the CMW Center.
- Activating the CMW Center with a robust summer program, providing low-cost opportunities for children and neighbors.
- Exploring partnerships with local non-profits and businesses to animate the CMW Center with engaging cross-disciplinary programs.
Goal 3: Build Sustainable Roots for Creativity and Community — secure CMW’s future by implementing mission-aligned revenue strategies and strong leadership and organizational systems.
Strategies include:
- Establishing guidelines for mission-driven use of the CMW Center and creating community-facing initiatives that serve the neighborhood.
- Building earned revenue systems that help sustain the organization financially.
- Ensuring staff compensation is equitable and sufficiently meets the needs of employees’ livelihoods, and exploring non-market-based compensation models.
- Reenvisioning the Resident Musician model to ensure workload is balanced and sustainable.
- Expanding and reorganizing human resource functions to be more efficient and responsive to the needs of employees.
- Expanding opportunities for staff professional growth and development.
- Investing in technological tools that will improve program tracking, event ticketing, and organization visibility.
Goal 4: Spark Widespread Excitement and Recognition through Performances that Amplify CMW Values — elevate the MusicWorks Collective as a dynamic artistic voice that generates excitement and recognition—locally, regionally, and nationally, and serves as an ambassador of CMW values.
Strategies include:
- Investing in strengthening the craft and musical voice of the MusicWorks Collective ensemble.
- Increasing staff capacity to support effective artistic planning.
- Fueling creativity through interdisciplinary collaborations.
- Centering students as essential to the performance experience.
- Elevating the MusicWorks Collective public identity and reach.
Our Values
Listening: We value listening as a practice of community, a practice of music, a practice of respect.
Equity and Responsiveness: We value the qualities of justice, equity, fairness, and welcoming which are the hallmarks of a culture of belonging.
Creative Practice: We value each individual’s creative capability and contribution – as musicians, as community members, and as citizens.
Continual Learning: We value ongoing, reciprocal learning that is grounded in curiosity, humility, reflection, and open-mindedness.
Love and Respect: We value a community where relationships are of the utmost importance and where people are recognized and honored as individuals with a unique voice.