COMPETITIONS

While revving up for our upcoming May 8th performance, your NVO Executive Team has been working hard to forge ties with other colleges and organizations here at IU. Last month, NVO proceeded to the final round of candidates in the 2015 Project Jumpstart Innovation Competition. For this competition, Benjamin and I prepared documents detailing NVO's mission, budgets, in-kind and monetary donations, projected company growth, market research, community impact...the list goes on. We presented to a panel of five judges which included representatives from the Jacobs School of Music, the local Bloomington government, and Kelley School of Business faculty. To put it lightly, we walked out of the competition feeling as though we'd just been contestants on Shark Tank. The panelists asked sophisticated and complicated questions, some of which Benjamin and I had never discussed. Luckily, we were both quick on our feet and while the judges deliberated, we conceded that we had done all the preparation we could.

Executive Director Benjamin Smith presenting at the 2015 Project Jumpstart Innovation Competition

In the end, the winner of the competition was our extremely talented colleague Kathryn Sherman for her project "Butterfly Dreams." While we were disappointed after we'd poured so much effort into our submission, the judges had some interesting things to say:

"Your organization is huge! The scope of what you're doing is enormous in comparison with the other submissions."

"NVO isn't a student organization...you're a full-blown company. You need to consider what your next steps will be."

"You have your own brand and your own mission. Aside from funding, you don't need outside help in solidifying your idea."

We were also encouraged by the judges to apply to another competition: The Kelley School fo Business CLAPP IDEA Competition. If we thought the Project Jumpstart Innovation Competition was stressful, we were woefully unprepared for what would be expected of us in this reknown contest.

Like before, we were expected to prepare documents detailing our organizational structure, where we fit in among our peers, and our projected growth plan. Unlike the Innovation Competition, we were expected to prove that we would be profitable. As a non-profit arts organization, this poses a pretty big problem. However, the fact that we're now in our third demonstrated year of successful production AND that we're the only student- and alumni-run contemporary opera company in the entire nation...well, that's pretty special.

Luckily, we've been selected as finalists in the CLAPP IDEA competition. We're currently prepping our presentation materials and gearing up for answering another grueling round of tough questions. But the experience that these competitions provide...the chance to stand up in front of incredibly successful professionals and defend a project that touches hundreds of students' lives...well, that makes it worth all the work. Win or lose, NVO comes out of these contests ahead of the game!

The Judges, Project Jumpstart Staff, Semi-Finalists and Finalists in the 2015 Project Jumpstart Innovation Competition