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Knight Foundation’s Biggest South Florida Initiative Adds Momentum to Growing Support for The Arts

Knight Foundation’s Biggest South Florida Initiative Adds Momentum to Growing Support for The Arts

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Knight Arts Partnership includes a community challenge open to everyone, and three major endowment grants

Feb. 06, 2008

MIAMI — The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced today the Knight Arts Partnership, an initiative with a $60 million impact on the arts in South Florida through three endowment grants to leading arts institutions and an inclusive, open-invitation community challenge seeking ideas in the arts and matching funding.

Knight’s $40 million contribution includes three grants totaling $20 million to establish leadership endowments for the Miami Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the New World Symphony.

“These grants add to a growing tradition of philanthropic giving in South Florida,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of Knight Foundation. “They follow in the footsteps of the Knight brothers, Ted Arison and the Arison Family Foundation, Adrienne Arsht, Sandy and Dolores Ziff and Pat and Phil Frost (at both FIU and University of Miami). This tradition of private giving includes the many others who have committed hundreds of millions already to the New World Symphony, the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the Miami City Ballet, the Wolfsonian, MOCA and so many other arts organizations.”

Knight is committing an additional $20 million over five years to a community challenge open to any individual or organization with big ideas for arts projects in South Florida. Each Knight dollar committed to these new ideas is to be matched from other funders, resulting in a combined impact of $40 million. The foundation is seeking those ideas at www.KnightArts.org.

“All of us are aware of the enormous growth of arts and arts organizations in Miami,” said Ibargüen. “In a community as diverse as ours, we should always seek ways to explain and to understand each other. Few areas in life offer the kinds of participation and shared experiences the way the arts do. We believe there are many others – other leaders, other organizations, individuals – with big ideas, and the community challenge is incentive for all of them.”

The Knight Arts Partnership adds momentum to a series of critical mass-building developments in the South Florida arts scene:

The swirl of activity and acclaim around events like Art Basel Miami and its satellite fairs, the Miami International Film Festival and the International Book Fair;
The explosive growth of arts institutions – from only 100 a quarter-century ago to more than 1,200 now;
Major private gifts in support of the arts estimated at more than $250 million in little more than a year;
Changes brought by the arts to South Florida’s physical landscape, with the Arsht Center and its Knight Concert Hall; the commission of major architectural projects like the new Frank Gehry-designed campus expansion for the New World Symphony, the new home for the Miami Art Museum designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron, and the Museum of Contemporary Art’s building expansion by Charles Gwathmey.

The endowment grants

The three endowment grants will establish the Knight School Education Series at the Miami Art Museum, the Knight Exhibition Series at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Knight New Media Endowment at the New World Symphony. The organizations were chosen for their leadership in the South Florida community and the access they provide to art and culture.

The $10 million Knight School Education Series endowment grant to the Miami Art Museum will fund an art education program to broaden access to and participation in the visual arts by welcoming every fifth-grade student in Miami-Dade County to class at the museum each year. Other programs connect the arts to middle- and high school students.

“During this time of rapid growth in Miami’s arts scene, it’s imperative to be inclusive of everyone in our community,” said Terence Riley, director of Miami Art Museum. “Knight Foundation’s recognition of our contribution to community art education and scholarship will create the opportunity for 40,000 Miami-Dade students to experience first-hand the nationally recognized exhibitions and other cultural programs at MAM through the Knight School Education Series.”

The $5 million Knight Exhibition Series endowment for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami will allow MOCA to mount up to three exhibits per year, featuring emerging artists, new public programs and events, school interpretive programs, lectures, film screenings, and the creation of new works.

“The Knight Arts Partnership will greatly help MOCA fulfill its core mission to present the best new and multimedia work by local and international emerging and experimental artists to a diverse audience, making it one of the few contemporary art museums in the nation to have a substantial dedicated source of funding for these types of exhibitions and artists’ projects,” said Bonnie Clearwater, executive director and chief curator of MOCA. “Through exhibitions and educational initiatives, the Knight Exhibition Series will foster a receptive environment where innovation and creativity will thrive.”

The $5 million Knight New Media Endowment for the New World Symphony will advance its use of digital technology, including further implementation of Internet2, which permits performers and audiences to share real-time experiences with other artists around the world. Once completed, the new Gehry-designed home for New World Symphony will be the world’s most technologically advanced classical music performance space.

“Knight Foundation is founded upon principles of communication. Its origins are in print media, and now it recognizes the challenges and opportunities of new media,” said Howard Herring, New World Symphony president. “We are grateful for Knight Foundation support of our cutting-edge work with new media. We look forward to exploiting the capabilities of our new campus as we inform and transform musicians and audiences here in Miami and around the world.”

The community challenge

The community challenge of the Knight Arts Partnership will pair $20 million from Knight Foundation with $20 million in matching funds to come from other sources. It is open to any artistic individual or art institution in South Florida.

Said Ibargüen: “Because we are looking for big, exciting and new ideas, we have made the process as easy and open as possible. There are only three rules: the ideas must be about art, the projects must take place in South Florida, and the idea must find funding to match Knight Foundation’s commitment.”

Organizations and individuals are invited to submit their ideas on the Knight Arts Partnership’s home page at www.KnightArts.org. Ideas will be accepted until April 15, 2008. Winners will be announced in Fall 2008.

About Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 Knight communities. Knight Foundation focuses on ideas and projects that create transformational change.

Contact: Marc Fest, Director of Communications, 305-908-2677, fest@knightfoundation.org

Related Links

Miami Today, Feb. 6
Innovative Knight Foundation Arts funding will Alter Miami
That will achieve a major foundation goal, lasting change, the most exciting element of the extraordinary Knight Arts Partnership.

The Miami Herald, Feb. 7
$40M Cash Bonanza for S. Florida Arts Groups
Big ideas need deep pockets to see them through, and on Wednesday South Florida's arts community got a healthy dose of both. ... The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced a $40 million grants initiative -- with the potential to grow to $60 million -- to fund endowments for three arts institutions and finance innovative ideas culled from artists and cultural groups based in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Funds Will Help Ideas Come to Life
``If only there were more money.'' That phrase no doubt has preceded the death of countless ideas imagined by South Florida artists and cultural groups.

Bonnie Clearwater: 'Knight Endowment Ensures MOCA's Cultural Impact'
"The arts have the potential to transform our community. Together with the Knight Arts Partnership, the recent major gifts in support of the arts in South Florida will exceed $200 million. The Knight Foundation views South Florida's diverse arts community as at a tipping point, poised to rise to new levels of artistic achievement and global recognition. The Knight Arts Partnership will have positive cultural, social and economic impact for generations."

The New York Times, Feb. 7
A Foundation Gives $20 Million to 3 Miami Arts Institutions
The starkest measure of Miami-Dade County’s growth as a center for the arts is evident in the raw numbers.

A quarter-century ago the county was a languorous cultural swamp sustaining barely 100 nonprofit arts organizations. Now, inspired in part by the annual Art Basel Miami Beach festival, Miami-Dade is a pulsating community of about 1,000 arts groups, from grass-roots collectives operating out of urban garages to the gleaming new $491 million performing arts center in downtown Miami.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 6
Foundation Announces $40 Million Boost for Arts Groups
South Florida arts groups got a $40 million boost from the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which announced on Wednesday a broad range of grants designed to spur the region's cultural growth.

South Florida Business Journal, Feb. 7
Knight Foundation makes $20M donation, pledges more

Bloomberg News, Feb. 6
Miami Museums, New World Symphony Receive $20 Million Donations

ArtDaily, Feb. 7
Knight Foundation Gives $10 Million to Fund Educational Program at MAM