Ping Chong & Company Selected to Pilot Leading for the Future Program

Ping Chong & Company Selected to Pilot Leading for the Future Program

New York, NY October 14, 2008Ping Chong & Company has been selected to take part in Leading for the Future: Innovative Support for Artistic Excellence , a groundbreaking new arts initiative created by Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) and funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. As part of the pilot program, Ping Chong & Company and nine other performing arts organizations across the country will receive grants to fund innovative projects that address sector-wide challenges such as shifting audiences, decreased funding sources, and new technologies.

Support from Leading For the Future will allow Ping Chong & Company to develop and implement a major initiative to expand its Undesirable Elements project to become a self-contained, revenue-generating program. The initiative will allow Undesirable Elements to serve as a sustaining and stabilizing core of Ping Chong & Company, providing a continuing stream of activity, and allowing Ping Chong to pursue his artistic goals, focusing on fewer but more ambitious projects. This initiative will serve as a model to the field for other single-artist companies and other organizations that wish to take artistic projects and expand their reach and impact into non-theatrical settings, such as schools and community groups.

"Ping Chong & Company is thrilled and honored to be selected for the Leading for the Future Initiative through the Doris Duke Charitable Trust and the Nonprofit Finance Fund. This program will create new opportunities for the public to interact with Ping Chong & Company through Undesirable Elements, our community-specific social justice theater project, as well as through Ping Chong's large-scale multidisciplinary theater productions," said Managing Director Bruce Allardice. "Support from the Leading for the Future program will allow Ping Chong & Company to build and strengthen our organization to better serve our mission, our artists, and our communities. We are excited by the challenges ahead."

Funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Leading for the Future is a 5-year, $15.125 million dollar initiative. The program will provide Ping Chong & Company with significant capital resources and technical assistance from Nonprofit Finance Fund.

The goal of this national initiative is to enable a group of artistically outstanding organizations to strengthen their business in a changing environment, while providing instructive examples and models for other arts organizations to learn from and possibly replicate.

"Leading for the Future will help trailblazing arts organizations continue to thrive in a society that is changing at lightning speed," said Ben Cameron, director for the arts for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. "Together with Nonprofit Finance Fund, we hope to learn valuable lessons about how arts organizations can innovate, even when faced with the challenges of a slumping economy, shifting generational interests, and emerging technologies."

Other Leading for the Future grant recipients include: Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Center Theatre Group, Cunningham Dance Foundation, Jacob's Pillow Dance, Misnomer Dance Theater, National Black Arts Festival, SITI Company, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and The Wooster Group .

"Leading for the Future participants have already proven themselves adept at artistic innovation; now, they will lead the way for arts organizations to reinvent their business platforms so the artistic side will be reliably supported," said Clara Miller, president and CEO of NFF. "At a time when restricted gifts and carefully predicted outcomes are the status quo, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is offering these organizations the latitude and support that is required for true experimentation and change."

ABOUT PING CHONG & COMPANY
Ping Chong & Company was founded in 1975 by theatrical innovator Ping Chong to create innovative works of theatre and art that explore the intersections of race, culture, history, art, media and technology in the modern world. The New York based company has produced over 70 works by Ping Chong and his collaborators, toured widely in the United States and throughout the world, and received numerous honors and awards.

ABOUT NONPROFIT FINANCE FUND
Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) is a national leader in nonprofit, philanthropic and social enterprise finance. Founded in 1980, NFF (http://www.nonprofitfinancefund.org ) provides loan financing, access to capital and direct advisory services that build the capacity and the financial health of nonprofits. A leading community development financial institution with over $80 million in assets, NFF has provided over $175 million in loans and access to additional financing via grants, tax credits and capital in support of over $1 billion in projects for thousands of nonprofit clients nationwide. NFF has a staff of more than 75 serving nonprofits nationally from offices in Philadelphia, New York City, Newark, New Jersey, Boston, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.

ABOUT THE DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (www.ddcf.org) is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Dukes properties.