Jeffrey McElrath pieces together the stage for Saturday’s fourth annual Bessie Smith Heritage Festival. The festival will include several performances, food, merchandise and activities.The Bessie Smith Heritage Festival hasn’t earned a profit yet, but organizers say they hope the event eventually will generate a $50,000 return to help protect the cultural center during a tough economy.
“We could never do totally without grant support or Allied Arts funding, so I don’t want to create a climate that we’re trying to move away from that,” said Irvin Overton, board chairman for the Bessie Smith Cultural Center.
About 60 percent of the center’s annual $300,000 budget is funded by grants and about 40 percent from membership and events, Overton said.
He wants the museum to be better positioned to sustain itself with money from memberships and events if the grant money is taken away.
“We use a lot of grant-supported dollars and you can’t make your organization successful using a lot of revenues that you don’t generate on your own,” Overton said.