The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Announces 2010 Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative Grant Recipients

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (Center) announced $780,000 in grants for organizational improvements to ten arts and cultural institutions from the Center's Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative (PCMI). This year's awards include four project grants and six planning grants. Four first-time grant recipients are among the awardees.

This past year, PCMI revised its program guidelines to reinforce the fundamental connection between strong management practices, outstanding artistry and audience engagement. A grant from PCMI is intended to help organizations improve their management functions in ways that will propel and support continuous improvement in their programming and services to audiences. Through these grants, PCMI hopes to enable recipients to meet the management challenges of an increasingly competitive market and simultaneously develop more dynamic and publically appealing programs. This renewed focus on organizational development as a means to spark programmatic excellence and ingenuity distinguishes PCMI's work from other funding focused on management improvements, and marks a continued commitment on the part of the Center to stimulate and support a vibrant cultural community throughout the five-county Southeastern Pennsylvania region.

Among the organizations funded:

• The Opera Company of Philadelphia (OCP) will develop partnerships with opera centers around the world, such as England's Music Theatre Wales and New York's Gotham Chamber Opera, and embark upon a research and development project aimed at breathing new life into the Opera Company's current programs. The company's 2009–10 season, which combines ambitious performances at the Academy of Music and smaller, more adventurous productions in the 550-seat Perelman Theater, has led to a marked upswing in subscriptions and ticket sales. To further increase this renewed public interest in opera, OCP will locate fresh talent through annual auditions at various locations around the country and Europe and bring a host of emerging, vibrant voices to the Philadelphia area for programs that appeal to both established and new audiences.
• People's Light & Theatre Company, known for combining its long commitment to involving young people in the creation and production of professional theater works, wants to go further in integrating art-making and education. People's Light plans to collaborate with two theaters known internationally for this kind of work: New York City's OBIE Award-winning Epic Theatre and the National Theatre of Scotland. The three theaters will collaborate on two summer institutes to explore new methods of incorporating education into theater performance, and theater into young people's education. People's Light will draw on these exploratory labs to develop new methods of crossing traditional boundaries of art and education, and to plan the re-organization of the theater's operations, to further reinforce the new approach. The results of the labs will be seen in People's Light's productions, its communications strategies, and in its administrative structure overall.
• Asian Arts Initiative will develop an operating plan for its new multi-tenant arts facility, located in Philadelphia's culturally rich Chinatown neighborhood. The three-story building will become the home base for multiple artists and small cultural organizations, and will house up to fifty work studios, offices, and rehearsal and exhibition spaces. Asian Arts seeks to build a stronger cross-cultural community through cultivating participation in the arts, and will develop the shared space to allow local artists to produce work, collaborate with each other, and explore effective ways to engage diverse audiences.
  “PCMI's 2010 grants will demonstrate how changes in administrative and managerial activities can catalyze more imaginative and higher quality programming to the ultimate benefit of our regional audiences,” notes Center Executive Director Paula Marincola. “Our new approach, which integrates management improvements with higher-quality programs and audience engagement, resonates fully with The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage's overall commitment to quality, and insures that programmatic excellence is seen as the primary goal for management advancements.”

“Research indicates that the quality and relevance of programs is a key factor influencing people's decision to participate in arts and culture events,” said Greg Rowe, Director of Culture Initiatives at The Pew Charitable Trusts. “As competition for audiences intensifies, these grants represent investments in the development of ten organizations that have identified or are actively seeking to find ways to ensure that they can continue to deliver a high standard of programs that engage audiences in meaningful ways.”

For the complete list of 2010 grantees and full descriptions of each funded project, please visit Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative's Grants Awarded page.

Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative grants are awarded annually on a competitive basis and provide much needed resources for individuals and organizations from a wide variety of fields to achieve greater organizational health. Grantees are selected by a panel of arts and culture professionals from around the country with experience in various aspects of the management field. For a full list of 2010 panelist names and respective credentials, please download the 2010 Grantee Roster PDF.

Since its inception in 2001, the Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative has awarded over $5.3 million in project grant support to those organizations that deliver exceptional programming and outstanding cultural services to people in the five-county region.

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is dedicated to stimulating a vibrant cultural community in the five-county, Southeastern Pennsylvania region. Established in 2005, the Center houses seven funding Initiatives of The Pew Charitable Trusts, and through them supports area artists and arts and heritage organizations whose work is distinguished by excellence, imagination, and courage. Each year, the Center's grants make possible more than 800 performances in dance, music, and theatre as well as history and visual arts exhibitions, and other public programs for audiences in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties. The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia. For more information, visit www.pcah.us.

The Pew Charitable Trusts (www.pewtrusts.org) is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life. It partners with a diverse range of donors, public and private organizations and concerned citizens who share a commitment to fact-based solutions and goal-driven investments to improve society