Leadership Arts Institute Project Committee Briefs
Class of 2026–2027
Every member of the class serves on one of five project committees. Over ten months, each committee works directly with a North Texas arts organization on a problem that organization needs solved.
The five briefs below come from the organizations themselves. Read all five before deciding — they differ in scope, and in what they will ask of you. Each committee also needs a chair, so say so if you want to lead one.
Submit Your Committee Preferences
Business Council for the Arts
The 40th Anniversary
In 2027–2028, the Business Council for the Arts turns 40 — four decades of connecting North Texas business leaders with the arts and cultural community that makes this region worth investing in.
Members of this committee will shape how an entire organization tells its story, honors the people who built it, and sets itself up for the next forty years.
We don’t yet know exactly what our 40th should look like. The committee that takes this project will have real creative latitude to define the celebration.
Our thoughts so far
Fundraising — give the anniversary its own campaign
- 40 for 40, and legacy gifts
- Anniversary sponsorships
- A peer-to-peer or corporate challenge
Celebrations and recognition — how we mark the moment
- A signature event
- A “40 Moments” series running through the year
- A reunion for board, alumni, and ambassadors
- A next-generation advisory group
Marketing and storytelling
- Campaign and identity
- An oral history capturing forty years of impact
- Commissioned artwork
Endowment
- Securing the next forty years
- Multi-year gift commitments
Over ten months, this committee will take the areas above — and whatever else it identifies — and shape them into a concrete, resourced plan. You will set priorities, propose a scope, and help decide what BCA’s 40th becomes.
Every LAI class leaves a mark on BCA. This year, one committee has the chance to leave a mark on all forty years of it.
Dallas Black Dance
Donor Cultivation Events Series
A short series of curated gatherings that reintroduce Dallas Black Dance Theatre to the Dallas philanthropic community.
The committee builds a small series of donor cultivation events designed to reconnect DBDT with current, lapsed, and prospective donors and corporate funders — particularly during the 50th anniversary season.
What DBDT gets
- A ready-made cohort of business leaders from the Leadership Arts Institute to help identify and introduce new prospects
- Turnkey event-planning support
- Access to BCA’s corporate network for venues and in-kind sponsorships
- A positive story to share with the community
What the committee will do
- Co-design and help execute each event
- Coordinate prospect list-building
- Support stewardship follow-up
The series centers on a flagship event tied to the season announcement, followed by two to three smaller gatherings in the months after.
Lone Star Wind Orchestra
Redesign of Development and Fundraising Programs
The committee’s scope
- Structure of the development staff and committee
- A job description for a development officer
- Recruitment of that development officer
- Re-engagement of past donors, and growth of the donor base in number, frequency, and size of gifts
- Corporate and institutional sponsors
- A formal legacy gift program
- Greater board member involvement in the development process
Shakespeare Dallas
Website, CRM, and Ticketing Roadmap
Shakespeare Dallas is seeking a roadmap for an integrated website, CRM, and ticketing ecosystem that supports its next stage of organizational growth.
A Year One priority in the organization’s new strategic plan is to launch a redesigned website and a unified patron experience that better serves audiences, donors, students, and community partners. Current systems require duplicate data entry, create administrative inefficiencies, and limit the organization’s ability to understand patron behavior across ticketing, fundraising, education, and marketing.
The committee will evaluate the current digital ecosystem and recommend
- A user-centered website redesign that better reflects the mission and improves the visitor experience
- CRM and ticketing platform options that bring fundraising, marketing, memberships, education, and patron data into a single system
- A phased implementation roadmap, including budget considerations, staffing implications, and realistic timelines
- Best practices for patron journeys, donor stewardship, audience segmentation, and data collection
- Analytics and dashboards that measure attendance, revenue, marketing effectiveness, and community impact
The Dallas Opera
Nuevas Voces: Diverse Audience Initiative
Building authentic, lasting connections with Dallas’s Latino community through opera’s newest leader.
The committee builds a bilingual audience development initiative that draws on The Dallas Opera’s strong Latino following and cultural fluency to reach new, more diverse subscribers and donors.
Components could include
- Partnerships with Dallas-area Latino cultural and civic organizations
- Spanish-language media outreach
- Bilingual program materials and subtitles
- A community preview night positioned around the company’s own story
What the committee will do
- Identify community partners
- Co-design the outreach strategy and the preview event
- Support a plan to sustain those relationships beyond a single season