Thank you, Stephanie, for that very warm introduction. I am deeply appreciative to the Blank family for bringing me to Atlanta to help lead its philanthropic efforts.

The Blank family and The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation have a broad vision for contributing to the quality of life in Atlanta and the state of Georgia. I’m excited to be part of it.

I also want to thank Shelton Stanfill and Beauchamp Carr for providing an early opportunity to meet my foundation and philanthropic colleagues and to share some of my ideas about our future work together.

It’s especially fitting that my first remarks are here at the Woodruff Arts Center. I began my career in philanthropy as a program officer for arts and culture. It was in that capacity that I met Shelton more than 10 years ago. And I’ve spent much of my career both in philanthropy and in the media thinking about how to deepen the role of the arts in community and how to strengthen communities through the arts.

That said, based on my seniority (or lack thereof) in Atlanta, I should not be your speaker at all. I should be listening and learning from you. In fact, when Shelton and Beauchamp first asked me to speak, I declined, not knowing what I could possibly have to say to this esteemed and informed audience. But the more Beauchamp persisted, the I persuaded myself that perhaps the observations of a newcomer could have value after all — or at least might stimulate a provocative dialogue. I had the notion that fresh eyes might in fact see behind the shadow of familiarity to reveal opportunities taken for granted or only occasionally remembered.

And so, what have I observed and learned so far?

I arrived in Atlanta on April 5, just over a month ago. The city was splendid —adorned in her spring regalia, painted with azaleas, dogwood and daffodils, redolent with the freshness of new growth.

For someone who has spent the last 30 years in the tropics, it was breathtaking — and I’m not referring merely to allergies!

But it was not simply the startling beauty that was compelling. It was the wonder of renewal — the feeling of starting fresh, of regeneration and rebirth. What I felt was more than simply the personal reinvigoration of a new adventure in my own life. It was a sense of a community growing profligately, constantly reinventing itself, blossoming with potential. That energy of renewal is a community attribute that we as philanthropoids want to capitalize on. It’s the energy that impels building a new, state-of-the-art symphony hall or embarking on a grand renovation of the High Museum.

But that explosive growth also promises a future filled with challenges — the challenge of growing smartly, not by accident but with intentionality; the challenge of providing access and opportunity to all of our citizens; the challenge of protecting natural assets for future generations; the challenge of educating an increasingly diverse community with different cultural backgrounds, different languages and different points of view.

I’m fortunate to be joining the Blank Foundation at a moment when the staff and family are ready to implement a new strategic plan. That plan aspires to address some of the complex issues I’ve just referred to. Through two major initiatives — Fostering Opportunity and Enhancing Quality of Life — we’ll be developing strategies and seeking partners in Atlanta to support early childhood development, to promote post-secondary education, to protect and preserve greenspace and to provide access to the arts, initially through the creation of the new symphony hall. Building on the special strengths of both the Family Foundation and the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation, we hope to make a measurable difference in individual lives and in the larger systems that affect those lives.

But we cannot do this work by ourselves — which brings me to my next observation as a newcomer. Just as Atlanta is bursting with the freshness of new growth, it has deep roots to support that growth.

From its origins as a strategic rail terminus, through its central roles in both a civil war and civil rights movement, to its position as the capital of the new south, Atlanta boasts a history rich in tradition and civic pride. The center where we meet today is a prime example.

Built in the wake of the tragic loss of more than 100 of the city’s business and cultural leaders, and named for the man who was perhaps the city’s greatest philanthropist, the center represents the highest aspirations of a community.

Let me read to you from the notes of a 1965 meeting of the council contemplating a new cultural center in Atlanta.

“Nobility, art and philosophy must flourish. . .

Arts can thrive and excellence will be esteemed. . .

Art is not an ornament, a plaything for the intellectual elite, but an elixir that nourishes the best impulses of men. . .

The arts need attention, respect, status. . .

Art establishes basic human truths, serves as a touchstone of judgment. The artist becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state . . .

Art deepens man’s understanding of this world and himself. . .”

The center’s founders recognized that great cities and strong societies need to cherish their history, their traditions and their cultural identity. This brings me to my third observation.

We’ve inherited their mantle. But while they can be our inspiration and our model, we must find new approaches, new methods, new partners because the future will not look anything like the present or the past.

In the early sixties, when this center was first being contemplated, metro Atlanta’s population was just over one million. Today, it’s about 4.2 million. Within the next 15 to 20 years, it’s expected to reach 7 million. And those 7 million people will look different, speak an array of languages and cherish diverse cultural traditions. In this I can claim some expertise. I have lived 30 years in Miami and I have seen the future.

According to the Metro Atlanta Arts Foundation, Atlanta has approximately 300 nonprofit arts organizations today. Records at the Atlanta History Center document that in 1962, at the time of the Orly plane crash, there were seven: two professional theater companies, two semi-professional theater troupes, the Atlanta Ballet, the Atlanta Symphony and the Atlanta School of Art. My math skills aren’t good enough to calculate the percentage growth.

Why is this meaningful?

As our population grows and our demographics change, we’ll witness a continued proliferation of diverse and culturally specific arts organizations that will both enrich the creative fabric and place new demands on us as funders.

Which brings me to my fourth observation: as donors, as advocates, as ticket buyers, as arts participants, we need to work together to expand the pie for arts funding.

In 1962, the arts were not included as a line item in the city budget. The Atlanta Arts Alliance’s 1965 inaugural campaign raised $3.4 million for the Memorial Cultural Center. The NEA did not exist until 1965, the Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs was founded in 1974 and the Fulton County Arts Council came into being in 1979.

Today, the Fulton County Arts Council has a $5.3 million budget, putting it in the top 10 counties nationally. The budget of the Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs is over $2 million; and in 2003 the Georgia Council for the Arts gave nearly $3 million to groups across the state.

But according to a recent study of the arts economy comparing Atlanta to 20 peer cities, Atlanta’s arts lag in private philanthropy, and we’re in the bottom tier of southern cities in nonprofit arts revenues per capita and philanthropy to the arts per capita.

What can we do? You’ve been tilling this soil much longer than I, so I suspect that my suggestions will come as no surprise. And from what I see, much is already underway.

But with the innocence of a newcomer and the fervor of a willing collaborator, here goes:

First, we must continue to work together. We must build authentic, meaningful collaborations in the same way we ask our nonprofit partners to cooperate. We need to share our individual agendas up front, so we can see where we overlap, where we are working at cross purposes, where we can ensure that the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts.

We must encourage our nonprofit partners to strive for efficiency and effectiveness. There are a great many unrealized opportunities for joint marketing, joint ticket sales, and combined back office functions that can strengthen the arts infrastructure without sacrificing artistic integrity. All that stands in the way is competitiveness and territoriality — and frankly, sometimes funders are as guilty of that as the organizations themselves.

We must allow and encourage nonprofit arts organizations to take risks in all aspects of their operations and programming. Today’s audience is profoundly different from the audience in 1962 — and tomorrow’s audience will demand innovations not yet in our imagination. But there is a vast potential audience of living, breathing individuals with different — but real — connections to the arts. These aren’t uninformed rubes who need us to show them the light. Neither are they look-alike, think-alike mannequins receiving the canon as dictated by us. These are individuals who make purposeful and highly personal decisions. Some of them have actually tested the product and found it wanting. The question is: are we listening to the very clear signals they’re sending? And, are we willing and able to let go of our prejudices and respond to the message in diverse and creative ways?

Whether we want to strengthen, deepen or broaden ties to the arts, we need to do something fundamentally different than what we’ve done before. We need to put everything on the table for review and negotiation. And we must be nimble, flexible and open enough to allow for new voices and new ideas.

If we can do all of that, the arts can be one of our most important bridges as we manage our growth, our changing demographics and our future. If we envision the arts as a tool for communication across social, ethnic and economic barriers, they can be instrumental in helping us fashion a just and livable community.

On the other hand, if we build it, they will stay away in droves if we don’t remain relevant to our whole community. We must constantly commit ourselves to bringing fresh eyes to our work.

Your commitment is why you’re here today. The commitment of Arthur and Stephanie Blank, and their talented staff, whom many of you have worked with, is what brought me here. I look forward to working with them and with you to make a difference.