Purpose
The Leading National Theatres Program provided the country's leading nonprofit theatres with multi-year artistic program support, while helping them build endowments that will provide a permanent and flexible source of revenue for artistic programs beyond the grant period.
Developed under the Arts Program's prior grant-making strategy, this program is concluding and will not be renewed.
Background
The country’s leading nonprofit theatres were launched in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the aid of significant grants from foundations, corporations and the government. These funding sources, along with subscription ticket sales, created artistic and fiscal prosperity.
However, today’s changing audience demographics and consumer patterns make subscription sales a less dependable source of revenue, while other funding sources continue to steadily erode, especially from the public sector.
In addition, general operating grants have largely been replaced by smaller project grants that must be secured from a variety of sources, requiring more administrative staff time to generate and manage. As a result, more financial resources must be dedicated to administrative costs while permanent positions for artists continue to wane.
To address the diminishing artistic program support for nonprofit theatres, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation created the Leading National Theatres Program.
Grant Details
Three-year grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation provide matching endowment support, which is augmented by three-year artistic program grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support commissions, artist residencies, community-based projects and other creative endeavors during the grant period.
Since 2000, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has approved $16.5 million in endowment grants to 23 theatres. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has contributed artistic programming support of $6.025 million.
Criteria
A select number of grantees from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's National Theater Program are invited to apply for this program. Candidate theatres commission new works, examine classic plays within a 21st-century context, develop multi-year relationships with visiting artists, provide leadership opportunities for emerging artists, and have the capacity to raise the required endowment match.
Process
Proposals from theatres that have been invited to apply are submitted to a panel of nationally recognized theatre professionals. The panel assesses and ranks the proposals against criteria specified by the foundations. In addition, a thorough financial profile is created by an independent consultant to determine each applicant’s financial viability and ability to raise the required endowment match. Site visits provide additional information on the organization’s administrative staff and board capacity.