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Is yours that choir that moves people from the pews to their feet Sunday morning, or are you the soloist whose seven-octave voice or baritone keeps them spellbound in the sanctuary?

For $25 and the nerve, yours could be the next face on a CD cover.

"North Carolina is a bed of gospel talent and this will give them another avenue to showcase that talent and to minister in the way they want," said McArthur Davis, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit Black United Fund of North Carolina, who came up with the idea for the N.C. Gospel Talent Showcase.

The statewide competition includes talent showcase workshop sessions taught by gospel music industry professionals, including producers Cedric Thompson, who has worked with Bishop T.D. Jakes and Donald Lawrence, and William Becton, an artist who has won numerous industry awards. Contestants will audition before a panel of judges.

With the state divided into geographic regions and first-round competitions, there would be four eventual finalists in the categories of choirs, praise teams and soloists at the finale, which is Sept. 27 at the War Memorial Auditorium. The finale also features a performance by Shekinah Glory Ministry.

The registration fee - that's $25 per person, even within a choir - helps offset the cost of the contest and the grand prizes, which are valued in the thousands of dollars. A compilation CD benefiting the nonprofit will be sold after the event, which is being taped for cable television.

The contest would provide money and exposure to contestants, but also help the Greensboro-based nonprofit with name recognition and a shot before a target audience: black church-going women, who make up a large percentage of charitable givers.

The nonprofit, which is working to seed projects that benefit minority and low-income neighborhoods, is part of a federation of similar organizations across the country and would like to have community-entrenched branches across the state. This project includes a variety of partners, such as McDonald's, the Pulpit Forum of Greensboro and Vicinity.

Davis, who has taught a course at the Greensboro Public Library on starting a nonprofit, has provided infrastructure and technical assistance to community, faith-based and other nonprofit organizations. Starving for cash itself, the nonprofit Davis oversees has thus far provided only advice and grant-writing for several start-up groups.

There are some good ideas out there, he says, that are not getting the chance to grow - just as he has seen ideas that need more work. His group would eventually like to offer seed grants of up to $10,000 to those programs, which must first show how they would benefit the community and that they have a plan to move it forward. It's critical that there's someone to invest in them, he said.

"Once a nonprofit gets that first grant, it's easier for them to get others," Davis said.

Davis' own group would also like to buy an office building near N.C. A&T and convert it into an incubator for nonprofits, allowing up to two years of free rent so the programs instead use time, energy and funds growing their projects. That takes money, too.

"The challenge is that if people don't know who we are, they won't give to us," Davis said. "A little bit of money from a lot of people can create a big change."

The gospel show, he said, could help produce more winners than those who walk away with the grand prizes.

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com