Summary
HOME, Inc. is among Boston’s non-profit organizations that operate in diverse areas of activity, including both education and arts. This slide demonstrates HOME’s current address and depicts its location in the South End neighborhood. As of now, HOME is headquartered in a building of great significance to the city’s history and culture – the Harriet Tubman House. The discussed building is part of the United South End Settlements that support citizens in the South End and Lower Roxbury areas by offering daycare, health-related, and educational services. The organization has moved to this location relatively recently, and it operated the Bates Arts Resource center at 731 Harrison Avenue for the majority of its history.
The South End Neighborhood
As per the recent demographic statistics, the neighborhood’s population size exceeds 30,000 people, making it the tenth most populated community in the city. With more than 13,000 individual households, the South End ranks seventh in Boston in terms of population density. When it comes to the population’s racial composition, the South End is a predominantly White neighborhood, which is rather typical for Boston. White Americans make up more than 46% of its total population, whereas people of Hispanic origin (except for Asian Hispanics and Black Hispanics) present the second most common group.
Information about HOME, Inc.
The name of the organization presents an abbreviation from “Here-in Our Motives Evolve,” which hints at HOME’s social focus and orientation, as well as the willingness to foster new generations of creators and critical thinkers. Making a difference in citizens’ lives serves as the organization’s mission formulated by Alan Michel, HOME’s one and only director. HOME aims to fulfill this mission by means of diverse projects, ranging from collaborations with local public schools to providing local artists with access to equipment to create artworks of social importance. As of now, HOME receives funding from twenty-nine organizations, including both local and national agencies, foundations, and governmental departments.
The leadership structure of HOME, Inc. requires special attention since it has informed interview planning efforts and the selection of one interviewee to represent this organization. Being the most frequently mentioned person when it comes to HOME, Alan Michel, a sculptor with a Master of Fine Arts degree, acts as the organization’s director and co-founder. He has been fulfilling diverse tasks, including staff and project management, partnership development, and overseeing any operational and fiscal activities, for more than thirty years. Other prominent leaders include Bruce Dillenbeck and Lisa Pearl. They perform program coordination tasks and are responsible for the management of media labs and guiding media mentors’ work.
Interview Planning
Alan Michel has been chosen as the interviewee for the next phase of the data collection process. Having managed HOME’s key activities since its establishment, this person can be justly regarded as the most well-informed representative of HOME, which justifies this choice. Within the frame of the interview preparation stage of working on the project, seven questions for the planned semi-structured interview have been developed. Their purpose is to address numerous knowledge gaps that stem from the scarcity of information accessible from HOME’s official website. Specifically, the first three questions refer to HOME’s initial mission and historical changes to it, the details of HOME’s activities in the served neighborhood, and the importance that HOME attaches to collaboration with artists. The third question will have a special place in the planned interview due to being linked with my key research interests.
The next questions cover recent changes to HOME’s operations and measures to support artists related to the pandemic’s potential harmful influences on non-profit organizations. Additionally, Alan Michel will be encouraged to shed light on particular characteristics or competencies that make artists more attractive as applicants for the residence program. Next, the interviewee can be asked to share his thoughts about actual and imminent social issues in the neighborhood or the entire city that should be solved or paid attention to as soon as possible. For the purposes of addressing the research question, he will also be invited to reflect on the role of the creative professions in raising awareness or eliminating such problems.
Research Question and Final Product
The historical method has been chosen as the most applicable qualitative research methodology. Considering the method’s focus on changes over time and links between past, present, and future events, the formulated research question seeks to keep track of the history of HOME’s collaboration with the artistic community and historical changes surrounding this aspect of its activities. A historical analysis essay that will provide a comprehensive overview of HOME’s importance as a source of support for local artists, sculptors, video creators, and similar professions is anticipated to be the final product. Based on an interview with Alan Michel and information from archived sources, including older interviews and newspaper articles, the essay will develop and explain an answer to the stated research question.
Further Issues
Finally, there are two areas that require feedback from other students and the instructor. To start with, it is more effective to develop products that would be relevant to specific audiences and provide them with practice-oriented takeaways, for instance, informing people’s decision to seek support from organizations. Therefore, I would like to know whether others consider the selected format (an essay) a successful choice for disseminating information that could be of interest to ambitious artists. Secondly, the success of interviews depends on multiple psychological factors, including the interviewee’s subjective perception of questions. Thus, feedback on the selected interview questions will be appreciated.
References
HOME, Inc. & Scholastic Media Association. (n.d.a). About us.
HOME, Inc. & Scholastic Media Association. (n.d.b). Sponsors/funders.
Michel, A. (2019). Welcome.
Statistical Atlas. (2018a). The population of South End, Boston, Massachusetts (neighborhood).
Statistical Atlas. (2018b). Race and ethnicity in South End, Boston, Massachusetts (neighborhood).