During the City Council and Arts Council’s annual dinner, members of both councils expressed support for the reorganization of the Arvada Center’s governance structure to help it grow.

The Kellogg Organization, a fundraising consulting firm hired by the city, made no significant changes to its strategic assessment plan and philanthropic study report sincethe report was presented to the councils on June 11, said Clark Johnson, chief operating officer and interim director of the Arvada Center.

”The Kellogg work is, in my mind, the evolution of the New Pathways project that started over two years ago,” Johnson said. ”The New Pathways process really helped us identify and hone in on what we thought were some structural problems we had here at the Arvada Center.”

The City Council and members of the arts council discussed the Kellogg recommendations to make sure all were comfortable moving forward with

implementation.

“(City Manager) Mark (Deven) said it June 11, and it stands true that we, as a staff, support the recommendations that Kellogg has brought forward,” Johnson said. “There are details that need to be worked out as far as we would actually implement those, but at the end of the day, we support them.”

The recommendations consist of eight steps, most of which are targeted at increasing philanthropic support and helping the Arvada Center

continue to grow.

The first step is to change the name of the Arvada Center Arts Council to the Arvada Center Foundation; and second, City Council would need to approve the establishment of an ad hoc task force for the foundation.

The task force would consist of two council members, the city manager or deputy city manager, five philanthropic leaders, an Arvada center executive director, the Arvada center chief operating officer and two alternates.

Several members expressed interest in serving on the task force. Kellogg has suggested including civic leaders with experience, financial capacity and influence in Jefferson County and the metro Denver area, and made specific recommendations for who those leaders should be.

“The descriptors are perhaps a little bit different than the people they have identified,” said David Cooke, a member of the arts council.

Deven said city staff would re-examine the list of possible task force members and make recommendations to the City Council prior to either the July 9 or July 16 meeting.

“When I say that staff is 110 percent in support of this, we know that means we are committing to a lot of work and a lot of effort in a relatively short time frame,” Deven said. “But we also believe in the need to get something done here. When we push the go button as staff, I can assure you we will be committed, and we will get it done and we’ll do whatever we have to do to get it done.”

The task force will be responsible for helping increase annual private contributions to the center’s annual fund to $2 million by 2017.

The fund currently receives about $400,000 a year.

Members of both councils support

the efforts.

“I think this is moving in the right direction,” said Deb Condo, a member of the arts council and original participant in the New Pathways project. “It’s a huge change. It’s the Big Bang Theory, just blow it all up and start all over again. We knew it would happen (when New Pathways started), and yes, we’ve lost a few members because of it, but they were warned, and I think we’re ready.”

City Council will tentatively vote on the recommendations during its July 16 council meeting.