Who We Are

The DeVos Institute of Arts Management provides training, consultation, and implementation support for arts managers and their boards.

It operates on the premise that while much is spent to train artists, too little is spent to support the managers and boards who keep those artists at work.

At the same time, rapid changes in technology, demographics, government policy, and the economy have complicated the job of the manager and volunteer trustees. These changes continue to accelerate.

Organizations that have mastered these trends are flourishing—even leveraging them to their advantage.

For those that have not, however, the sense that “something’s not quite right” can seem unshakable. For too many, these changes have led to less art, decreased visibility, diminished relevance—even financial collapse.

These challenges inform our approach. Never has the need to balance best practices and new approaches been so urgent.

Institute leadership and consultants—all arts managers themselves— understand that, in today’s environment, there is no time or resource to waste. Therefore, Institute services are lean, direct, and practical.

The DeVos Institute has served more than 1,000 organizations from over 80 countries since 2001. While environments, objectives, and disciplines vary, each of our clients shares the desire to create, market, and sustain exemplary cultural programs.

The DeVos Institute has designed its services to assist a wide range of institutions, from traditional performing and presenting organizations, museums, galleries, art schools, and libraries, to botanical gardens, glass-making studios, public art trusts, and nonprofit cinemas, to name a few.

The Institute was founded in 2001 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. by President Michael M. Kaiser. In 2010, it received an unrestricted, multi-year commitment from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation to support its pro bono consulting and teaching activities. In 2014, it transferred its operations to the University of Maryland, maintaining offices in Washington D.C. and partnering with the University on research, teaching, and fellowship initiatives serving thousands of students and practitioners worldwide.

Photos by Chen Dance Center, Margot Schulman, YassinePhoto.com, and Renee Rosensteel.