New Pathways for Arts & Culture | Charlotte

An adaptive capacity building program for arts & culture organizations in Charlotte, NC

EmcArts, alongside the Foundation for the Carolinas, proudly announces the launch of New Pathways for Arts & Culture | Charlotte, a three-year program geared to strengthen a cohort of ten of Charlotte’s most distinctive cultural organizations by investing in adaptive change efforts and building adaptive capacity.

New Pathways for Arts & Culture celebrates and advances organizational innovations as responses to complex challenges during times of rapid change in the arts and nonprofit sectors.
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New Pathways

A place-based training program for non-profits to strengthen their capacity to adapt to a changing world.
The program will integrate a wide range of learning activities and financial investments as activities escalate from micro to macro-level experimentation.  The participating organizations will learn about building financial and adaptive leadership capacity through group workshops, forums, coaching, individual organizational facilitation, and tiered capital investment.

New Pathways | Charlotte is supported by the THRIVE fund, founded by Hugh McColl and administered by the Foundation for the Carolinas, as well as the Arts & Science Council.  The program includes facilitation work by EmcArts experts, program-related micro-grants to support “small experiments with radical intent”, project grants to bolster prototyping efforts for substantial new strategies, and access to larger capital grants for qualifying applicants. The cohort model is designed to encourage group learning, with the goal of building adaptive capacity not just within organizations, but across the Charlotte arts & culture sector.

The New Pathways program will bring together teams from participating organizations for a new kind of professional development and training program around innovation and adaptive change, to form a sustained learning network, to share “next practices,” and to help guide and stimulate new thinking and action. We are excited to work with these ten very diverse organizations, each of which has a great potential to experiment and move in ambitious new directions.

Richard Evans, President, EmcArts
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Program Components

  • A sequence of six workshops and three participant-led Innovation Forums
  • On-site Coaching for up to five organizations, with a $5,000 micro-grant to support experimentation
  • A year-long, individually facilitated “deep dive” process for each organization to incubate a specific, larger-scale innovation initiative, with a $40,000 prototyping grant
  • The opportunity to apply for capital grants from a multi-million-dollar innovation fund, held by the Foundation for the Carolinas, to support the scaling of those projects which bear the possibility of long-term, transformative impacts
New Pathways | Charlotte Participating Organizations

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art*
Charlotte Ballet†
Charlotte Symphony†
Children’s Theatre of Charlotte†
Discovery Place†
Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture*
Levine Museum for the New South†
McColl Center for Art + Innovation*
The Mint Museum*
Opera Carolina*

*Participating in Organizational Coaching in 2018
†Participating in the first round of Incubating Innovation in 2018
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Participating Organizations

A list of the many organizations that have participated in EmcArts programs over the past several years.

ABOUT THE FOUNDATION FOR THE CAROLINAS
Established in 1958, FFTC is a civic leader and philanthropic partner with more than $2 billion in charitable assets, making them one of the largest community foundations in the U.S. The Foundation supports personal and corporate philanthropy through a range of innovative fund and giving options. They also drive nonprofit sustainability through endowment management, customized solutions and grantmaking.

ABOUT ARTS & SCIENCE COUNCIL (ASC)
ASC serves as the designated “Office of Cultural Resources” for the City of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County and six suburban towns by providing advocacy, cultural education programs, cultural planning, fundraising, grant making, public art and workshops and trainings for the cultural community. They work to ensure Culture For All by combining resources from local and state government with those of the private sector to maximize community impact throughout the cultural sector.

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