Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition

Gonna try to hit all points here. Hate me if you must.
They are big enough that many members do not get attention. OVAC used to be about helping individual artists now it is about the bottom line.
Dues increase by $ 5 each time the USPS increases it’s rates by a few cents, although member numbers increase significantly each year and they hold an annual fundraiser for operating costs and receive funds trickled down from Allied Arts and the Oklahoma Arts Council. The benefits they «add» with each dues increase are services that one must still pay for, they just claim a «discount» to these additional paid services.
They do good work with grants. One MUST be a member to be eligible to apply for the artist grants. So you have to PAY for a CHANCE at this grant money. perfectly legit.
Many artists get repeat shows, this is a good and a bad thing– good for repeat artists, bad for some artists who may never get a chance to work with them. As far as I know, boards and committees are usually comprised of many of the same people just playing musical chairs and switching positions. Their «collector» tier of membership will most likely be pooled from many of the same artists which is a bummer as there are SOOOOO many good artists in Oklahoma and in OVAC.
I have seen a full cadre of volunteers walk out on an event and the coordinator desperately lure new ones in with free pizza via social media. Not sure what happened, but something was going on that pissed off all the volunteers. Bummer. They take unpaid interns, and this is legal as they are a nonprofit. I have yet to speak to an intern who was legitimately given college credit for their time but I am sure this is a real thing with them as they are a legit organization and not just some place trying to get free work (they have volunteers for that!) One can apply to volunteer or intern on their website– this is good experience if you don’t know anything about hanging art (but they might not let you if you don’t know anything about it, so there’s that)
The only communications they send with their members are scripted or copy-​pasted from websites or forms (this is verified information, it’s a PR thing so they do not look bad to anyone). As membership grows– they become more stoic, almost corporate.
*Also… recently a substantial amount of OVAC artists have reported being contacted through their directory emails by fraudulent check scammers… one wonders if the mailing list was sold through one of those aforementioned «affiliates» through which they offer the «discounts» as extra «benefits»…

Awesome organization, obviously.