Arts and Culture

New Directions/New Donors - $42.5 million for the Arts

Landmark Initiative Aimed at Stimulating New Arts Funding From Individuals

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Overview of Arts and Culture Program Description of Grants and Grantees Media, Arts, and Culture (MAC)

NEW YORK CITY, NY, May 3, 2000 - The Ford Foundation, one of the country's largest philanthropic organizations, today announced a landmark program, New Directions/New Donors for the Arts: A Ford Foundation Cultural Initiative. This initiative will provide $40 million in one-time challenge grants to 28 nonprofit organizations across the country from every artistic discipline. It is designed to capitalize on two concurrent national trends: an expanding economy, which has created a new generation of potential donors, and the fresh energy and vision exemplified by arts organizations working in creative new directions.

The challenge grants will be used to generate donations from individuals over the next 3 to 5 years, raising an additional $73 million in endowed funds for artistic and operating expenses. The initiative also includes a $2.5 million grant to the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which will document the grantees' lessons in building support among individual donors and use this information to develop publications, web-based resources and training opportunities for the benefit of the larger arts field. New Directions/New Donors for the Arts responds to the current explosion of cultural activity and rapid growth of wealth in the United States," said Susan V. Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation. "It grows out of our desire to see if we can jumpstart a process that gives greater permanency and financial stability to cultural organizations."

The initiative builds on the Foundation's decades-long commitment to strengthening arts and cultural organizations in America. The 28 grants, ranging from $1 million to $2.5 million, will be designated for permanent capital, including general operating endowments, working capital reserves or endowed funds for artistic programming. Each institution will seek to match its grant on at least a dollar for dollar basis with contributions from individual donors.

Based on a national study of over 200 arts organizations, the Ford Foundation selected 28 cultural institutions representing the variety and scope of imaginative work taking place across the arts disciplines throughout the country. Individually, each of the 28 organizations is shaping thinking about new practices in its field by forging innovative artistic programs, developing stronger financial management structures and cultivating strong connections to the public. Additionally, the Ford Foundation only selected financially healthy institutions that are capable of meeting the responsibilities of the challenge grants. Taken together, the organizations, which range from young to long-standing, represent the diversity and vitality of the nonprofit arts sector today. While a number have received previous support from the Foundation, half are new grantees. The grantees are listed below by discipline.

Dance:

• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (New York, NY)
• Ballet Memphis (Memphis, TN)
• Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• San Francisco Ballet (San Francisco, CA)

Literature:

• The Academy of American Poets (New York, NY)
• The Loft Literary Center (Minneapolis, MN)
• Western Folklife Center (Elko, NV)

Media:

• Appalshop (Whitesburg, KY)
• Film Forum (New York, NY)
• Sundance Institute (Park City, UT)

Music:

• Jazz at Lincoln Center (New York, NY)
• Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (Kalamazoo, MI)
• St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (St. Louis, MO)

Opera/Musical Theater:

• Houston Grand Opera (Houston, TX)
• Opera Theatre Saint Louis (St. Louis, MI)
• Prince Music Theater (Philadelphia, PA)

Performing Arts Presenting:

• Brooklyn Academy of Music (Brooklyn, NY)
• Flynn Theatre for the Performing Arts (Burlington, VT)
• Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (San Antonio, TX)
• New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts (Newark, NJ)

Theater:

• Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago, IL)
• Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA)
• Alabama Shakespeare Festival (Montgomery, AL)

Visual Arts:

• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, MA)
• Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
• Mint Museum of Art (Charlotte, NC)
National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.)
• SITE Santa Fe (Santa Fe, NM)

As an adjunct to New Directions/New Donors for the Arts, the Ford Foundation will give a $2.5 million grant to the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) to ensure the lessons of the grantees in meeting their challenge grants are widely disseminated. The NFF will develop and disseminate publications, web-based resources and training opportunities for the broader arts field addressing the issues of comprehensive capitalization, endowment management, individual donor development, and board leadership.

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The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Russia.