With early support from the Ford Foundation, the National Alliances Program (NAP) was established to assist community arts organizations with planned growth. Initially serving as a virtual site of the Cultural Facilities Fund initiative (CFF), NAP expanded NFF’s work geographically nationally beyond the cities where CFF had offices. The goal was to provide services to these other markets cost-effectively through coordination and collaboration with other national intermediaries.

Perhaps most notably, the National Alliances Program designed and delivered a series of multi-year national initiatives that supported the thoughtful capitalization of arts and culture organizations. Each initiative and the thought leadership pieces generated for the field is listed below.

• New Directions/New Donors
• JazzNet Mid-sized Presenting Organizations initiative
• Green Buildings Workshop

By 2008, NAP’s work was absorbed into the general activities of our national programming and led to the creation of the Leading for the Future initiative (2008 – 2013).