Gospel Gold-GMWA

James Cleveland developed and built the Gospel Music Workshop of America, Inc. where the perpetuation and promotion of gospel music has been and remains a primary purpose of the organization.

in March of 1967, called together friends from across the US in an effort to brainstorm his idea of producing a venue for gospel music presentations. The selection of people he called together was chosen due to individual contributions in gospel music. This association formed the Gospel Music Workshop of America with a national convention motto of "Where Everybody is Somebody."

Rev. Cleveland stated, “There are young folk that have talent but have no where to get instructions as to how to put that talent to work. And so I thought how could we help upgrade the music in the church and bring sometime of education to the youth since there is no formal education in schools where they can get the training...so I had the bright idea to get all the best exponents of gospel from all over the world together, asked them what they thought about the idea of coming together forming a workshop to try to teach the young folk whatever they wanted to know about gospel.”