Social Impact Initiatives | The Kennedy Center

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Published 2020-07-09

As the National Cultural Center, the Kennedy Center has a unique and urgent responsibility to turn symbolic gestures into tangible systems. On June 2, 2020 we made a statement to hold this institution accountable and ensure that the Center is always home for critical conversation about race and discrimination.

Led by the Kennedy Center’s Social Impact team, under the leadership of Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the arts are leveraged for non-arts outcomes. We are building on work that has already begun at the Center and will prioritize, pursue, and weave throughout the institution. These are not intended to be immediate solutions, but rather iterative strategies that will take three to five-year to implement as the Center works, systemically, to foster anti-racism within the organization and across the performing arts.

We will be:
-Investing more than a million dollars annually in the local creative economy.
-Showcasing artists from all 50 states through Arts Across America.
-Activating the REACH with a lens on public health.
-Connecting black art to anti-racist organizing through our #BlackCultureMatters initiative.
-Commissioning young composers of color in the classical music realm through our Cartography Project.
-Focusing on cultural leadership and community action.

The Kennedy Center is deeply focused on better evaluating itself as an organization as well as its progress as an anti-racist institution and is developing tools to measure the efficacy of our processes from a relational standpoint, creating institutional accountability in how we engage the community and implement our philosophies and learnings. Additionally, the Center is exploring how alternative language, aesthetics, and modalities could play a key role in communicating more directly and successfully with newer constituency groups and under-represented communities.

We’re working to produce symbols that inspire while cultivating systems that sustain an equitable future.

Music courtesy of Black Violin

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All Comments (9)

@makanahokuokalanikukailani3270 1 year ago

Systems that sustain an equitable future 🎉 I love that!!!! ❤❤❤
@sariyahidan 2 years ago

This is great, big up Bamuthi and the Kennedy Center for creating these systems.
@eruffin40 3 years ago

LOOKING FORWARD !!!!!!
@petebarrow274 3 years ago

I look forward to hearing the works of prominent black composers like Mozart and Beethoven.
@glenhoward 3 years ago

Bravo, Kennedy Center, for showing this essential leadership.
@Benet1nOnly 3 years ago

Thank you Kennedy Center.....you have delivered GREAT NEWS!..I look forward to the new events.
@Kessforsuccess 3 years ago

My only question is why doesn't this have more likes.
@claudeaustinjr3879 3 years ago

I wish programs like this were available when I was growing up and going to school.