The School of Ballet Arizona (SBAZ) was awarded a 12-month $100,000 Implementation Award from the Flinn Foundation to support the Growth and Capitalization of the School of Ballet Arizona.
This grant will provide a foundation of support giving SBAZ finances to invest in staff, marketing resources, and new class offerings. With a solid business plan to grow SBAZ, the grant will focus on specific marketing campaigns for the school along with introducing and evaluating new class offerings.
The School of Ballet Arizona under the artistic direction of Ib Andersen and school director Carlos Valcárcel offers professional training and recreational dance opportunities. The school has over 250 children and teens registered in weekly ballet classes, and approximately 500 adult students taking classes monthly. SBAZ also offers scholarships and financial aid of more than $55,000 to its young dance students each year.
“The leadership of Ballet Arizona and SBAZ thank the Flinn Foundation for its support and the expansion plans of the school,” said Ballet Arizona Executive Director David Tompkins. “We are excited about the Flinn Foundation’s interest about improving capitalization of Valley arts organizations through this initiative, especially through the investment of Ballet Arizona.”
The Flinn Foundation is active in supporting the financial and creative health designed to strengthen arts organizations at its programmatic core through the Initiative for Financial and Creative Health. It aims to identify priority capitalization needs among Arizona’s largest arts and culture organizations, and design strategies to impact those needs.
“The Initiative is shaped by the recognition that arts and culture are intertwined with economic and societal realities that are uncovering fault lines in established business models,” said Flinn Foundation President and CEO Jack Jewett. “It supports trustees and administrative and artistic leaders to develop programs and projects that build both financial and creative health.”
With funding from a Flinn Initiative planning grant, SBAZ contracted the Technical Development Corp. (TDC) in Boston who conducted a recent in-depth analysis of SBAZ that looked into attendance, revenues, and costs across of various class types, as well as a thorough survey of recent students. The opportunities for growth and sustainability are very promising from the findings.
The TDC consulting project showed that if investments are made within SBAZ then Ballet Arizona can achieve tremendous revenue growth by 2020 and beyond. Not only will this positively impact the school, but also performing arts within the state.
The grant cycle continues through the 2016-17 SBAZ school year where the art form of ballet through dance education for adults and children alike is projected to generate exceptional growth in net revenues for Ballet Arizona in subsequent fiscal years.
For more information on School of Ballet Arizona click here.
