Photo credit: Flickr user miamism.

At Knight Foundation, I always looked for three elements when evaluating a project for funding: thought leadership, business skills and ability to execute. I am leaving Knight after three years, but I’m staying in Miami because it’s one of the most exciting projects of all, with all the elements for even greater success.

I’ll be joining the Miami Downtown Development Authority, where I’ll help them carry out their mission to grow, strengthen and promote the economic health and vitality of downtown Miami. I’m happy to be staying here because I love Miami’s people, energy and potential.

At Knight, I started as a journalism and media innovation program associate, managing grants aimed to help people get the news and information that allow them to make the best choices in their lives.  Two years later I became a project specialist, improving our systems and doing large research projects.

When considering potential grants, there were always three elements I looked for:

1. Thought leadership – a project with a good idea, but also ‘more where that came from,’ a sense that if the project needs to change or iterate because of an evolution in assumptions or environment, that the leaders were capable of the kind of vision to create a different or even better version of the project.
2. Business skills and/or fundraising – strong, passionate leaders create an infectious energy around their projects – and that can translate into great fundraising ability.  Some projects have really solid business revenue models, which can be made even better if they build in a plan for sustainability.  In any case, thinking through budgets and generating the money needed is really important.
3. Ability to execute. Project management is critical.  Great ideas are one thing but sometimes even the best visionaries don’t have the right skills to make their ideas happen.  Great projects include people who just know how to get things done, those who hire the right people, can manage budgets and tell the story of what they achieved (or what they learned).  Sometimes all those skills are in one person, sometimes it takes a village.

I’ll be considering the same kinds of opportunities in my new job – but in a more local context. With such diversity in talent, this city has people with all of the skills needed to design, lead and execute great projects.  Knight’s focus in Miami is supporting the talented creatives, entrepreneurs, innovators and agents of change who are shaping the community’s future.

The missions of both organizations are closely aligned, so I’ve been speaking with Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation vice president of arts who told me, “Miami’s downtown has been revitalized over the last five years as young creatives have discovered it as a place to live. It is now a 24/7 lifestyle, full of Miami’s best and brightest.”

Matt Haggman, Knight’s Program Director in Miami said, “A thriving urban core is vital to attracting – and keeping – the best creatives, entrepreneurs and doers of all kinds. And it’s hard to think of a more exciting time for downtown Miami. It’s an area that has been transformed in recent years, and it is now poised for another round of groundbreaking changes.”

The three things that make great projects also make for a great city – and Miami has all of them in spades: great people, ideas and the determination to make it all happen.

By Amy Starlight Lawrence, project specialist at Knight Foundation