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Young Adult Centers, Inc. records, Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries.
The Young Adult Centers, Inc. records were given to the Social Welfare History Archives by John Parker, chair of the board of Young Adult Centers, Inc., in 1989.
Please contact the archivists for further information regarding this collection.
Young Adult Centers, Inc. was incorporated in 1971 to run Coffeehouse Extempore, a snack bar and artist performance center in the West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis, near the campus of the University of Minnesota. Created as a non-profit organization, Coffeehouse Extempore was designed to be a place where young artists could perform prose, poetry and music to develop their talents. Run by volunteers and a part-time staff, the Coffeehouse became a well-known spot where musicians and others on the coffee house circuit could perform.
By the late 1970s, financial problems led the Coffeehouse to seek stable sources of funding in the Twin Cities community. The prospect of receiving funding from a local foundation like the Metro Area Council or First Banks Foundation meant that the Coffeehouse could no longer rely on its informal system of management. It worked to create job descriptions and an organizational hierarchy, which would demonstrate a sound management system to potential donors. Some members became unhappy with these changes, expressing concern that the Coffeehouse was no longer a "family" type of organization.
The records consist of correspondence, general organizational materials, annual meeting minutes, board of director's minutes, financial reports and budgets and fund-raising applications. The records reflect the way the Coffeehouse was managed and the problems confronted in the late 1970s in the struggle to maintain the organization. The board of directors' correspondence contains most of the evidence of the changes taking place within the organization. Some resignation letters, in particular, bear evidence of the unhappiness created by pressures to change from a grass-roots organization to a more market-oriented corporation.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.