NECAT’s Our Nashville Series Features Local Nonprofits
By Trish Crist, CEO, Nashville Education, Community, and Arts Television –
In 2017, Nashville Education, Community, and Arts Television (NECAT) launched a television series called Our Nashville that featured 20 thirty-minute episodes in season one, each focused on a different local nonprofit organization.
In summer 2016, NECAT received news that their Public Investment Proposal for adding a new service to the city had been approved by Mayor Barry and by Metro Council. The project was designed to proactively inform the public about the many invaluable nonprofit services and opportunities available to them and to let nonprofit organizations know that city leaders and public arts, public education, and public access television teams value their roles in our city.
“This is a wonderful way for the city to work with non-profits in order to highlight the important work they are doing in the community,” said Mayor Megan Barry. “The PIP process is designed to promote innovation and collaboration, and NECAT has produced a great model for supporting our city’s invaluable non-profit organizations.”
In fall 2016, a call for applications went out to area nonprofits to apply for coverage in season one and NECAT received 103 applications for the 20 spots. An experienced Selection Committee comprised of the heads of several major foundations worked with NECAT to score the applications and the cumulative numbers identified the season’s top 10 arts and top 10 education/community service.
All of the episodes from Season One can be found here. They include the following:
ARTS:
- Frist Center for the Visual Arts
- Global Education Center
- Conservancy for the Parthenon
- Hendersonville Arts Council
- Nashville Ballet
- Nashville Shakespeare Festival
- National Museum of African American Music
- Tennessee Craft
- My Father’s War
- Oz Arts Nashville
COMMUNITY EDUCATION/SOCIAL SERVICES:
- FiftyForward
- Operation Stand Down Tennessee
- Nashville Public Library Foundation
- Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation
- Conexion Americas
- Interfaith Dental Clinic
- Nurses for Newborns
- Siloam Health
- Alzheimer’s Association
- Tennessee Foreign Language Institute
NECAT is currently producing a second season. It’s our purpose to do everything we can for all of these great organizations, so we offered all applying entities a year’s worth of Community Event Bulletin space. These spots, like commercials on network television, will run during program breaks on all three NECAT channels reaching 19 middle Tennessee counties to help spread the word of the organizations’ work and important roles in the community.
About NECAT
NECAT is a stand-alone, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created by Metro in 1978 to manage our city’s public access television station, to teach the public how to make television shows, welcoming them to use the studio and equipment, and to broadcast the shows they create on one of our three channels (arts, education, or public access). They are Comcast channels 9, 10, and 19, and U-verse multi-channel 99. Find out more at NECATnetwork.org
Make TV. Watch TV.
necatnetwork.org
