A Comprehensive Planning Process is Underway!
LUFKIN, TX. The Angelina Arts Alliance is proud to announce that it has engaged the services of professional strategic planning consultants to guide the organization through a comprehensive planning process for the first time in the organizations 19-year history of operations.
Thanks in part to a generous grant received from the T.L.L. Temple Foundation, the Angelina Arts Alliance staff and Board of Directors will work with Ms. Suzanne Smith and Ms. Joanna St. Angelo of Social Impact Architects of Dallas, Texas. The consultants, the Arts Alliance and several community stakeholders will assess the organization’s operations, programs, mission and overall impact on the community. The planners, in collaboration with the Arts Alliance, will create a multi-year strategic plan going forward with measurable results based on actions and goals to achieve long-term success and increase its community impact.
Social Impact Architects® is a social change agency that provides consulting and learning resources to changemakers, working alongside them to design creative and transformative solutions to social issues. SIA uses innovative, market-driven management tools to design cost-effective, pragmatic plans for our clients.
The firm, which is a women-owned business, has assisted many organizations in Texas and throughout the country with strategic plans, including arts and cultural organizations. In addition to having regional knowledge of the environment in which AAA operates, SIA’s founder has successfully contributed to projects at the local, state, and national level. This process has been so successful that it was presented in 2015 at the U.S. Conference of Mayors as a best practice in building community systems.
The project will be led by Social Impact Architects’ founder and CEO, Suzanne N. Smith, MBA. Ms. Smith serves as a coach and consultant for social organizations seeking to maximize the impact of their social strategies and achieve real, measurable results. Having spent the greater part of the past two decades generating innovative and breakthrough social ideas, she has been widely recognized for her success in building and implementing award-winning programs and initiatives within the social sector. As the daughter of two career educators, she has deep expertise in the social sector locally and nationally.
Outside of Social Impact Architects, Ms. Smith holds a research fellowship at the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University and is an adjunct professor in the school of management at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is also a member of the prestigious Society of Organizational Learning (founded by Peter Senge) and the 2010 recipient of the Next Generation Social Entrepreneurs Award from the Social Enterprise Alliance.
Prior to founding Social Impact Architects, Suzanne was a Senior Consultant with the Washington, D.C., firm, Community Wealth Ventures. Previously, she also worked in planning and government relations with both the Phoenix House and the American Heart Association. While with the American Heart Association, Suzanne championed early efforts to build an integrated and outcome-driven platform to combat childhood obesity. In that role, she cofounded the Alliance for a Healthier Generation with a team from the William J. Clinton Foundation. Suzanne holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where she was a CASE (Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship) scholar.
A third-generation Texan, her roots run deep through her work to improve her community with Entrepreneurs for North Texas, Dallas Business Club, Leadership Dallas, Leadership North Texas and the Junior League of Dallas. She has held a number of appointed posts for the City of Dallas and currently serves on the Library Board and the Mayor’s Task Force on Poverty. She was honored to receive the Dallas Business Journal’s 40 under 40 award in 2012 and the Dallas Regional Chamber’s Young ATHENA Leadership Award.
Ms. Joanna St. Angelo will also play a role in the planning process. As one of the leading thinkers in the arts in Texas, Ms. St. Angelo served as the Executive Director of the Sammons Center for the Arts from opening day, March 1, 1988 and has 31 years’ experience in nonprofit management. She is one of the pioneers of nonprofit shared-use facilities. She is also the President and Founder of the Dallas Area Cultural Advocacy Coalition which advocates for arts groups of all sizes and disciplines to promote recognition of the importance of arts and culture. She is a prominent consultant on arts and facilities management and has served on several nonprofit boards for a variety of organizations. In addition to her role as CEO of Sammons Center for the Arts, Ms. St. Angelo is a sought-after consultant and expert on the development of shared-use cultural facilities and redevelopment of historic buildings. Ms. St. Angelo received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota.
“We couldn’t be more excited about our future and about beginning the planning process with Social Impact Architects. With a great deal of visioning for the future and planning, the Arts Alliance hopes to take a greater leadership role in the cultural development of Angelina County and beyond,” said Jennifer Allen, Executive Director of the Angelina Arts. Alliance.
The Angelina Arts Alliance is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to present a wide array of diverse, quality performing arts, along with educational and family performances which collectively enrich, engage and educate the community.
