Today I announced a new project – Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative. (Click here to enter the Arts in Crisis website: http://www.ArtsInCrisis.org)

We created this new project because so many arts organizations are in deep trouble. The economic environment is so bad that virtually every arts organization – large and small – is suffering declines in earned income, contributed income and endowment income.

Virtually every arts organization is cutting its budget. But as I have written before, where one cuts has a great impact on the future of the organization during, and especially, after, the crisis.

There are no easy answers to the challenges we all face. But I have found so arts managers looking for advice or even just a sounding board.

This is why we have created this new project. The senior staff of the Kennedy Center will serve as volunteer mentors for other organizations. We are also calling on other experienced arts managers to volunteer their time to be mentors to troubled arts organizations. We will serve as a clearing house – matching troubled organizations to appropriate mentors.

If we don’t work together at this time, we are in serious danger of losing the rich fabric of arts organizations that benefits all of us.