December 11, 2024
By Mary Jo Pitzl
Major arts organizations in Arizona are getting a nearly $4 million boost to help grow their audience and chart their course in a post-pandemic era.
The Flinn Foundation has awarded a collective $3.8 million over the next three years to 18 arts groups, ranging from the Arizona Theatre Company to the Mesa Arts Center.
The grants recognize the changing landscape for arts groups and are intended to help them navigate it, said Tammy McLeod, the CEO and president of the privately funded foundation.
Audiences for indoor arts events shrank during the COVID-19 pandemic, and there hasn’t been a full recovery, she said.
The foundation has targeted six organizations with what it calls “change capital” to tap into resources to help them map a way forward. The grants will provide the groups with consulting and other services that will help them analyze their audience numbers, take a deep look at their operation and come up with a strategic plan, she said.
“It gives them a little more muscle,” McLeod said.
The Phoenix Symphony is one of the organizations benefitting from the change grants.
The money is already at work, said Peter Kjome, president and CEO of the Phoenix Symphony.
The symphony is using the grant funding to reach more broadly into the community, “to understand what is important to them, what kind of programming is important to them,” Kjome said.
While working to deepen its ties with existing symphony patrons, Kjome said, the Flinn grant will help it look for new audiences, amplifying work the symphony has already done to broaden its audiences.
