The New Harmony Project will engage Artistic Logistics and Equity Quotient to facilitate a 7-month, equity centered strategic planning process and antiracism training. This will guide The New Harmony Project over the coming years and will allow us to build new programs and structures that meet the moment, ensure our resources are utilized equitably and justly, and that antiracist practices exist at the core of the organization. Specifically:
● Board and staff will participate in a two-day antiracist training workshop led by Keryl McCord of Equity Quotient.
● Board and staff will participate in a multi-phased strategic planning process to examine the core vision of The New Harmony Project, led by Lisa Mount and her team at Artistic Logistics.
● Staff and the strategic planning task force will meet with Keryl McCord multiple times throughout the planning process to ensure that antiracist practices and policies are embedded in the plan’s details.
● The New Harmony Project will formally announce the full strategic plan and vision for the future of the organization in September 2021.
TIMELINE: Initial antiracist training complete by April 2021. Strategic planning process begins February 2021 and will be complete by September 2021.
Lisa Mount refuses to specialize. As the Director of Artistic Logistics she works as a consultant with non profit arts organizations, and facilitates dynamic meetings for groups large and small. As an independent artist she produces, directs, and appears in contemporary performance work, including the acclaimed community story plays, Headwaters: Stories From A Goodly Portion Of Beautiful Northeast Georgia, Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between, and Headwaters: Didja Hear? at the Sautee Nacoochee Center from 2007–2013. She toured with the DeLuxe Vaudeville Orchestra as rhythm banjo player from 1994 to 2006. Before embarking on her consulting career in 1997, Lisa served as the Managing Director of 7 Stages theater in Atlanta. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, with honors, from Lewis and Clark College. She has served as the Board Chair for Alternate ROOTS, the Atlanta Theatre Coalition, and Georgia Shares, a workplace giving campaign. Lisa received the 1996 “Abby” Award from the Atlanta Arts and Business Council for Outstanding Arts Professional, and was named one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend Magazine in 2008. In 2009, she was given the first Paula Vaughn Community Arts Lifetime Achievement Award by the Georgia Assembly of Community Arts Agencies. She currently serves on the boards of Alternate ROOTS and the Network of Ensemble Theaters.
Keryl McCord is founder and CEO of EQ, The Equity Quotient, a national training and organizational development firm dedicated to supporting arts and culture nonprofits interested in becoming more just and equitable community partners, with equity, diversity, and inclusion as outcomes of their work. Keryl is a veteran arts manager and administrator with more than thirty years of experience in many facets of the arts. Her background includes serving as managing director of two theater companies, Oakland Ensemble Theater Company, a five-hundred seat AEA theater in downtown Oakland, CA, and Crossroads Theater Company, New Brunswick, NJ, the only black-run LORT theater at the time, and the first such company to receive the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater. Ms. McCord served as the executive director of the League of Chicago Theaters/ League of Chicago Theaters Foundation in 1990. She left Chicago in 1991 to take a post at the National Endowment for the Arts as Assistant Director of Theater Programs, and was appointed Director of Theater Programs in 1993.