[Mary – I have added questions/comments/suggestions/ideas in red below. Perhaps this page would be better as a news item, which stamps it with a date.]

The Kingston Prize Needs Your Help to Continue Showing the Face of Canada

The Kingston Prize is at a crossroads right now.

To move forward, we need your help!

We are delighted that thousands of people in Canada and around the world have viewed Canadian portraits by Canadian artists on our website and in person at our eight exhibitions. Your generous comments tell us how important The Kingston Prize is to artists and portraiture in Canada. [Where are these comments? Can you give examples?]

We want The Kingston Prize to accomplish for talented Canadian artists what the Giller Prize has done for Canadian authors.

Are you a juror?  An artist?  A gallery director interested in hosting a portrait exhibition?  A portrait lover ?  A Kingston Prize Exhibition visitor?  An enthusiastic future board member? A potential prize sponsor? Help us keep The Kingston Prize alive and well for future Canadians.

We Need Prize Sponsors

To move forward, we need major sponsors to fund the Prizes for the winning portraits!

• Would your organization be interested in funding the Prize?
• Can you suggest another organization which might consider this?
• Does the Canadian Portrait Prize reflect the values of your organization?
• Do you see a fit, a mutual benefit?

To move forward, we need financial support for ongoing needs of The Kingston Prize Association!

[There needs to be some information about what the benefits are to the sponsors – exposure to an audience that they want? Promotion at exhibitions? Promotion on Facebook page? logo on TKP website? Sponsorship acknowledgement in email signature? Describe what TKP can give to sponsors in terms of rewards – both tangible and intangible – and allow them to see themselves in your descriptions. Perhaps describe past funders.

Also – I think it would be fair to give people information about how much it costs to run a competition like this. Everyone can see the prize value, but there are other costs as well and perhaps other benefits. For example, the prize provides an income that allows an artist to create art instead of having to work at another job. The exhibitions attract visitors to galleries and the visitors put money into the local economies.

It is important for TKP to be able to articulate here why it is important to have a competition such as this. The ‘about’ page does this well, so some of those same ideas could be expressed here.

Be specific about what you want people to do next if they say ‘yes’ to any of the above. Do you want them to email you? Fill out a form? My choice would be to have a form that collects some basic information from the person so that when you have the initial conversation, you don’t have to start at ground zero.]

We will gratefully welcome donations made through CanadaHelps

[LINK TO TKP Canada Helps page]

We Need a Gallery Location

To move forward, we need a home!

Would your gallery’s upcoming calendar have an opening for a future portrait exhibition?

[Describe what kind of space you need and for how long. What kind of visitor numbers are attracted by the exhibit? What have past galleries had to say about hosting this exhibit (i.e. drew visitors, was well organized, good communications, etc.)

Be specific about what you want them to do next. (see above)]

We Need Board Members

To move forward, we need enthusiastic board members!

Are you ready to make a difference on our volunteer board to help us tackle the challenges of this demanding time?

[Describe what the jobs are that are available. How many times the board meets each month/year. What are the benefits? Do they have to be in Kingston? Do they have to be an artist? Do they have to be a certain age? What skills are you looking to add to the board? Tell stories of examples of things that past board members have been involved with that were fun/interesting (i.e. meeting artists, getting to visit galleries, etc.)

Be specific about what they should do next… etc]

It is not news that the COVID 19 pandemic has affected the arts and artists worldwide, including The Kingston Prize, Canada’s premier portrait competition.

With great regret, we have decided to postpone our 9th exhibition and tour in 2021, to assess our future.

The Kingston Prize is Canada’s only national portrait competition, exhibition and tour, and it is open to all Canadian artists. It was fashioned around the highly successful, 99-year-old Australian Archibald Prize for Portraits.