Grant Writing and Funding Plans

Our fund raising services can be contracted on a variety of levels, from individual grants to complete long term funding plans. Please feel free to give a call if you need to talk through the possibilities.

Our grant writers have a near 100% success rate and are experienced with virtually every type of foundation, government and private organization proposal.

If you have a strong record of fund raising, but just aren’t making ends meet

are looking to expand or create new initiatives

are interested in exploring new fund raising models

OR if you just don’t know where to start…


We’re experienced and more than happy to work with individuals and organizations on creative approaches to the development of:

needs assessments

personal appeals and individual giving

quality and focus of submission materials

short & long term funding plans

increased earned income

seed money for individual projects or tours


ALI is a subsidiary of 501(c)3 MiShinnah Productions and is able to act as a non-profit for any of our clients upon approval by our board.

Strategic Planning

In the increasingly competitive non-profit funding market, it is becoming nearly impossible to meet funding goals without a strong and focused strategic plan in place.


Why? Because effective fund-raising efforts, positive staff development and smooth running partnerships are equally dependent on the ability of the leadership of an organization not just to develop a compelling and realistic vision, but to clearly communicate that vision and to create a mechanism for it’s realization. And these sorts of mechanisms need lots of care and regular adjustments.


Whether creating a five year plan for your entire organization or seeking guidance on the development of an individual program, concert series, education initiative or career path, strategic planning is a process of study, reflection and discussion. Ultimately it is a living document, which should be revisited, evaluated and updated annually.

We’re here to guide you through that process – painlessly and non-threateningly.


Please note that Strategic Planning is not just for large organizations. It is for any organization, ensemble or individual who desires an ongoing presence in their field.

Program Design

Program design is where your vision hits the pavement
Where ideas become implementation
Where your talents are given the opportunity to shine.

But unfortunately it’s also where the most time is wasted
Where we discover competing priorities and insufficient preparation
Where communication tends to break down.

And it is one of our areas of greatest expertise at ALI.


Whether you’re a full-time orchestra seeking a presence in the community, a social service organization seeking to offer arts programming to your constituents, a string quartet launching a series of children’s concerts, or a museum seeking ways to target new audiences, program design is your first step.

With a comprehensive knowledge of successful objectives-based models for community engagement and a strong penchant for working well outside the box, we can help you to:

Develop a program model that serves your organization and your community

without burdening either.

Tweak existing models to make them more efficient, effective and fundable.

Assess and develop the assets necessary for effective implementation from the start.

Bridge the pervasive communication gap between artists, social services agencies, schools, funders,

politicians and constituents

Program Assessment

All funders today ask for a clear and focused assessment of outcomes for each an every program and event.


But well designed assessment protocols should not be used simply to satisfy your funders. If used well they will become the most valuable tool that you possess -

For growing your organization and your client pool or audience base

For improving your services

For deepening the commitment of your staff, members or audience

For growing your budget.


We will help you to design the appropriate tools and delivery systems to make those assessments - easily, practically and usefully - without undue burden on you, your staff or your constituents. And we will help you to learn to use those tools to develop and maintain dynamic programming.

Training Services

The sudden growth in the use of assessment tools for arts and social service organizations as well as schools has pointed to one glaring issue more than any other – even our most talented and skilled artists, teachers and staff are not necessarily appropriately trained for the tasks they are being asked to carry out.


ALI offers a range of standard training regimen for:

Developing active learning techniques

Student engagement and retention

Collaborative teaching techniques

Recognition and accommodation of individual or special needs within the group setting

Effective and appropriate high impact approaches to exposure based arts programs

(children’s concerts, museum visits, etc.).

These sessions are appropriate for teaching artists, classroom teachers, front-line staff, support staff, artists and performers,

We are also adept at developing specialized training sessions for the individual needs of your organization or your specific programs.

Please call or email us for more specific information.

Organizational Transitions

The most difficult and precarious times in any organization’s life span are the times of change. And while, to quote my friends in the financial industry, “change is opportunity”, it can be incredibly difficult to have the objectivity necessary to recognize or take advantage of these opportunities.

Recognizing such opportunities as they develop and devising methods for maximizing the positive possibilities of organizational change is perhaps our most unique and valuable area of expertise.

Are you going through an executive change? Staff restructuring? Expansion? Funding loss? Moving your office? Merging with another organization? Implementing new initiatives? Entering into new partnerships?

Change can be very hard on the individuals who make up your organization. We will help you take the uncertainty out of the process. We will mediate the intricacies of developing new realtionships between your board, your leadership, your staff and your constituency. We will insure that no competing priorities or differences in "style" develop into organizational crises.

In short, we will make your organization’s transition a time of growth, renewed energy and renewed commitment on everyone's part.

Educational Programming Objectives

Simply put, research has shown that high-impact, performance-based arts education with a high degree of accountability and follow through is the single most effective means of assuring social and academic achievement among most school-aged children and is especially effective among children who are underserved or at-risk.

It is the objective the children’s arts programming of Arts and Learning Initiatives to build esteem, awareness of self, social maturity and academic skills through high impact, performance based, sequential arts classes in which the success and development of each child is assured.

In the case of ALI direct services programming this is accomplished by tapping into the wealth of talent in the local arts community, through regular and ongoing sessions which place well-trained active professional artists with your organization’s children in a skills- based, goal oriented setting.

All of our programs meet all state and local arts learning standards.

Who Is Our Staff?

All ALI Teaching Artists and Arts Mentors share several traits in common –

They love children and take great joy in the accomplishments, large or small, of each individual child.
They maintain an overwhelmingly positive approach with the children
They are active professionals with an impressive resume of accomplishment.*
They have completed rigorous training specific to the population with which work.
Their primary approach to teaching is through modeling – behavior, attitude and performance technique.
They all participate in all ensembles and activities alongside the children.
They continue to be mentored themselves as part of their work with ALI.



*examples of our artist mentors professional activities include the Broadway stage and pit orchestra, many of New York’s most accomplished orchestras, National Poetry Slam championships, publications such as Chicken Soup for the African-American Soul, and The Outlaw Guide to American Poetry, The Ray Charles Band, Forces of Nature dance company and many many others.

Service To Artists and Arts Organizations

Remember – In the vast majority of cases our services pay for themselves through increased funding, increased capacity and increased staff stability, not to mention motivation and morale.

Arts Organizations – Any combination of our consulting services may be for you.

We take a practical, solution oriented approach to every task. So - if you have all the talent in the world at your fingertips, but aren’t sure how to approach education or community engagement; if your programs are in place, but not achieving their potential; if you need to develop an assessment protocol and data yesterday; if you’re having a harder and harder time maintaining funding, your audience base, or a reliable and capable staff; if you’re outgrowing your resources or your organization is going through a period of transition; if it’s time to move to the next level. -- Please call us.

Is there something else that you feel is holding your organization back? Let us help you find the best solution.


Individual Artists – funding, funding, funding. You’ll want to check out our grant-writing services and 501(c)3 umbrella as well as our strategic planning services.


Ensembles - Choreograhers - Theater Companies - Concert Series - Festivals - “Others”: you need to create a model that will sustain your leadership and provide adequate employment for your artists to maintain consistency on your team. We can help you to develop sustainability, money saving and momentum building consortiums, strategies for attracting corporate sponsorship and a sophisticated and personalized approach to education programs.

And we can help you get the grants that will set it all in motion.

How (and Why) Do Social Service Orgs Make Room For the Arts

(Social Service Orgs may benefit from our Consulting Services and/or Children’s Arts Learning Programs)

First, the "why". Whether serving a constituency primarily of adults or children the arts are a primal force and an exceptional vehicle for reaching people. Arts Learning remains, universally, the almost exclusive approach to early education. Arts Learning is the backbone of a diverse range of occupational therapies. And why? Because the arts are an efficient and enjoyable way to teach skills in a positive, stress free, esteem-building environment.

While much of the time social service organizations have the most to gain from community building partnerships or arts based programs, they often lack either staffing or experience to accommodate those partnerships and programs effectively.


We are here to tell you that doesn’t need to be the case. These partnerships can enhance your programs and serve your clientele without burdening your staff or your resources. Oftentimes all that’s needed is an effective “translator” to mediate and help define programs and expectations. Your needs may go further to include program design and staff training .


If you’d like to develop such partnerships, but don’t know where to start – we can help you find, develop and fund the programming that will have the highest impact for your constituency. If you’re entering into a partnership now, or beginning a new program or are trying to integrate the arts into current programs, we will make sure that you don’t spend the first two months (or two years) spinning your wheels.

Our Philosophy of Business Practice

A great performer selects repertoire that they are passionate about. They study not only the material to be performed, but the creator of the work, their tendencies and proclivities and preferences and quirks. They analyze the new work in order to understand it fully. When they come upon technical aspects that are new to them – they make a study of those techniques. They train. They prepare their minds and their bodies to handle all of the challenges of the work. They prepare until they are completely over-prepared, until they have fluid command of their craft and their material until the only unknown quantity is the audience itself, until there is the assurance not just of success but of the opportunity for inspiration each and every time they perform.

We believe that no less diligence and passion is required of the organizations who serve those performers and their audiences, or who would seek to brighten the lives of children, or who hope to serve families in need, or who simply have a vision that they are seeking to realize.

Kevin James

Kevin James is a noted educator, a world-class performer and composer, a writer, a thinker and an obsessive problem solver. His groundbreaking models for community engagement and out of school arts education for disadvantaged children have had a dramatic impact on the lives of countless children and have influenced the work of dozens of organizations in New York City and beyond. He is on several university advisory boards and artist colony selection committees and regularly sits on expert panels.

With more than 13 years experience owning and managing a business, relationships on every level with dozens of arts organizations, ensembles, universities and schools, significant world travel experience, and degrees in philosophy and music performance and composition, Kevin brings a fresh, unique and valuable perspective to each new project

The founding of Arts and Learning Initiatives in partnership with Mishinnah Productions represents the next logical step in Kevin’s ongoing service to New York non-profits and the arts.

Helping Schools To Be Havens For The Arts

(Schools may benefit from our Consulting Services and/or Children’s Arts Learning Programs)


The era of No Child Left Behind has caused two glaring problems for schools today:

First, they must figure out how to reintegrate the arts into the school day in an environment of diminished funding. And second, they must find a way to improve the reading and math skills of their underperforming students.


If your school is struggling with either or both of these issues, call us. We can provide you with direct service programs that will address your needs or we can help you to find and develop other appropriate partnerships. We will safeguard that you’re programs will be fundable, sustainable and effective. We will mediate your relationships with outside organizations and provide the services necessary to assure that you hit the ground running rather than wasting time and money spinning your wheels.

What do our education programs look like?

All of our programs are customized to the age and specific needs of the children served, the available facilities, staff structure and schedule of our clients. Many of our programs are designed in response to specific artistic projects or events with significance to a local audience.

The design of all of our programs are greatly influenced by the development of the Portraits Project Mentorship Program model. The PPMP model was a groundbreaking initiative which has had a broad impact on education programming in the arts throughout the New York City area and beyond. .

A few of the key elements of the PPMP model are:

Close and regular contact between the children and active professional artists, musicians,

dancers, actors and directors. The professionals work and perform alongside the children at

all times, as does any other adult who is present – parents, staff or visitors included.

A skills based, sequential approach which helps the children to be able to perform or present

their work every time they meet. Even at their very first session.

An emphasis on improvisation and “working in the moment” as a catalyst for the desire to

develop skills. The children have strong, consistent input into all the works that are

performed or presented.

An ongoing relationship with a professional institution (i.e. an orchestra, dance company,

or museum, etc.) who facilitates both field trips and guest artist visits for the children

on a regular basis.

An emphasis on quality of performance, self-critique and analysis.

Dual teaching methods of modeling and questions-only Socratic dialogue.

And finally - an extremely positive and nurturing approach that emphasizes acknowledgment

of even the smallest advances or efforts, that rewards attendance and reliability above all

else, and that rewards exuberance even if might be ill-timed or not quite appropriate to the

setting. Because if producing works of art, learning new skills and being part of a successful

team effort aren’t reasons for exuberance, I don’t know what is.

What Disciplines Do We Offer?

We are currently able to offer high impact arts programming for children in the
4^th through 12^th grades in the following disciplines:

Music

Our music programs can take a variety of forms, but always involve learning an instrument

through direct engagement with professional performers. Children begin performing during

their very first session and there is heavy emphasis on development of skills, improvisation

and ensemble playing.

Poetry

Our poetry work is performance based with strong emphases on creativity, originality, the

craft of writing, writing as a collaborative art, and performance skills,

Theater Arts

Our Theater Arts program is an exploration of the diversity of the skills and teamwork required

to accomplish high quality stage performance, including all facets of playwriting, stage craft,

movement and acting.

Dance

As with all of our programs – our dance curriculum is tailored to the children served. Our

teachers are all working professionals with experience in ballet, modern, and jazz, as well as

contemporary forms such as hip hop and salsa. There is emphasis on a compositional approach,

improvisation and ensemble work.