Today, we have exciting news for St. Paul: an $8 million commitment to the city’s cultural community. It’s a two-part investment that represents both a pledge to five of the city’s cultural institutions and a funding opportunity for everyone in the city. First, the pledge: Over the next few years, Knight will provide $3.5 million to five of the city’s arts organizations, to help them attract and engage audiences, and keep their work fresh and innovative into the future. We chose these groups – all current Knight grantees – because of their commitment to artistic excellence and their openness to finding new ways to engage the public, a key challenge for so many arts organizations. Funding will, for example, help the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra strengthen its already successful digital outreach, allow TU Dance to continue to diversify the local dance scene with expanded outreach programs, and help emerging performance groups take the stage at the Ordway Center through subsidized rentals. Penumbra Theater will fill two new positions to solidify the new vision for its future that it recently announced. And Springboard for the Arts, which has provided vital services to local artists, will bring its leadership and toolkits on issues like healthcare to other communities around the United States. You can read more details about the efforts of these groups in today’s news release. For Knight, these groups represent the exciting momentum both St. Paul Program Director Polly Talen and I have seen here over the past few years. Through our visits to dozens of local arts groups, it’s evident that St. Paul is a community that prides itself on its thriving cultural sector, a city that knows and lives the importance of the arts to building a sense of community. In fact, that’s why Knight Foundation reinstated its arts program a few years ago – to fund ideas and projects that not just inspire and challenge us, but connect us to one another and our communities.
