(WASHINGTON, D.C.)—The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced a two-year arts management training program for 57 arts organizations in Miami, Florida. Titled Capacity Building: Miami, the program is free to all participants and is designed to build institutional capacity in such areas as fundraising, marketing, strategic planning, season planning and board development. Capacity Building: Miami joins other large-scale arts management training programs administered by the DeVos Institute around the country, including those in Chicago, Detroit and Grand Rapids. Today, the Kennedy Center also announced a program for arts groups in the Orlando/Central Florida area. Additional programs in other regional areas in the United States will be announced in the coming months.

Capacity Building: Miami is made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Organizational support for Capacity Building: Miami is provided by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Miami Capacity Building Program will launch on January 14, 2011 with an introductory seminar led by Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser. Five additional seminars led by Michael Kaiser and other Kennedy Center senior staff will take place over the course of two years as well as a dozen web-based discussions and on-site consultations with each of the participating organizations.

“As a nation, we spend billions of dollars training musicians, dancers and actors but very few resources are available to train the people who employ them,” stated Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser. “Miami and the Orlando/Central Florida area are home to a variety of dynamic arts organizations and the Kennedy Center’s capacity building programs will provide training that will help build and strengthen these groups while providing a forum for working on solutions to common challenges.”

“We have one of the fastest growing, most diverse cultural communities in the nation,” said Michael Spring, Director of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. “This exciting, new partnership with the Kennedy Center comes at just the right moment for our vibrant arts scene.”

“Cultural groups in Miami are already producing top work,” said Dennis Scholl, Vice President, Arts at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “This program will help maximize their impact on a broader scale.”

A list of the participants can be found below.

Capacity Building: Miami

Actors’ Playhouse Productions, Inc.
Area Stage Company
Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida
Arts for Learning/Miami, Inc.
Bakehouse Art Complex, Inc.
Bascomb Memorial Broadcasting Foundation / WDNA-FM 88.9 Public Radio
Bass Museum of Art
The Black Archives History & Research Foundation
Brazz Dance Theater Incorporated
City Theatre
Coconut Grove Arts & Historical Association, Inc.
Coral Gables Congregational Church Community Arts Program
The Dance Now! Ensemble, Inc.
The Deering Estate Foundation, Inc.
enFAMILIA, Inc, Art and Family Education Center
Florida Dance Association
Florida Grand Opera
Friends of the Bass Museum, Inc.
FUNDarte, Inc.
GableStage
Greater Miami Youth Symphony
Ground Up & Rising, Inc.
Haitian Heritage Museum
HeroesUnite
Infinito Art & Cultural Foundation
Junior Orange Bowl Committee, Inc.
Karen Peterson and Dancers, Inc.
LegalArt
Locust Projects
The M Ensemble Company, Inc.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center, Inc.
Miami Bach Society
Miami Beach Botanical Garden
Miami Book Fair International
Miami Children’s Museum
Miami City Ballet
Miami Design Preservation League
Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Inc.
Miami Hispanic Ballet Corp.
Miami Light Project
Miami Lyric Opera
Miami Music Project, Inc.
Miami Science Museum
Miami World Cinema Center
The Cleveland Orchestra Miami Residency
New World School of the Arts
Patrons of Exceptional Artists, Inc. / Miami International Piano Festival
The PlayGround Theatre, Inc.
The Roxy Theatre Group, Inc.
Seraphic Fire & Firebird Chamber Orchestra, Miami Choral Academy
SoBe Institute of the Arts
South Florida Theatre League
Thomas Armour Youth Ballet
Tigertail Productions, Inc.
University of Miami Frost School of Music/ Festival Miami
The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
YoungArts, National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts

About the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center
The programs of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center, formerly the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute, offer practical training to arts managers and board members at all stages of professional development in the United States and around the world.  These programs, which stress core competency in fundraising, artistic planning, strategic planning, marketing, and board development, have reached arts leaders from more than 65 countries. The centerpiece of the Institute is its Capacity Building programs, which offer technical assistance to arts managers and their boards through seminars, web chats, and on-site consultations.  In addition to previously announced programs in Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C., the DeVos Institute will continue its efforts to strengthen local arts organizations with a series of regional programs around the country.  Other Kennedy Center Capacity Building programs include a multi-city program in partnership with the Ford Foundation, and a national program for 45 culturally specific arts organizations specializing in African American, Latino, Asian American, and Native American arts.

Another DeVos Institute Program, Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative was launched in February 2009 and has given free consultation to more than 750 non-profit performing arts organizations with the assistance of 140 volunteer mentors from around the United States.  As part of this initiative, Center President Michael M. Kaiser led a national tour of arts community conversations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia to assist organizations faced with challenges during the economic downturn. The Institute also houses Board Development Seminars, has hosted the Performing Artists Cultural Visitors programs through the Department of State.  In the last year, the Institute welcomed ten year-round fellows, as well as 42 arts managers from 28 countries to its Summer International Fellowship program, which brings participants to the Kennedy Center each summer for three consecutive years for practical training at the nation’s cultural center. The DeVos Institute of Arts Management is made possible by a gift from Betsy and Dick DeVos.

For more information about the Kennedy Center, please visit www.kennedy-center.org.

For more information about the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center, please visit www.kennedy-center.org/education/artsmanagement/

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote informed and engaged communities and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

PRESS CONTACT:

Amanda Hunter
Kennedy Center
(202) 416-8441
[email protected]