Students and supporters alike are dancing at The School of Performing Arts in the Richmond Community (SPARC), which recently received $2 million in gifts to help raise the curtain on their future.
The largest commitment in the Richmond nonprofit’s 32-year history, the donations came partly from long-time SPARC supporter the Steven and Katherine Markel Foundation, which contributed $500,000, and the rest from an anonymous donor, who gave $1.5 million.
The money kicks off the finale to SPARC’s longstanding Capital Campaign, allowing the performing arts-focused nonprofit to lose the mortgage weight that accompanied their Harrison Street location purchase in 2008. Nonprofits dealing with large amounts of money may want to consider using the services of a CPA with experience in this area. Information can be found right here on such services so that you can learn how a CPA can help to conduct nonprofit bookkeeping and other essential financial activities to keep the organization ticking over as it should.
“Being debt-free means that every donation that comes to SPARC afterward goes 100 percent to keeping our program running: to the teachers, to the students, to the lives of our participants,” explains SPARC development director, Candace Mraz-Nelson.
Future plans for SPARC involve adding three more instructional studios to meet the ever-growing need for space and focusing on raising money for the program itself, which requires $600,000 in donations to produce each year.
“Now, we can concentrate on expanding the campus-we’re bursting at the seams,” says Mraz-Nelson. “If you come here on a Saturday, you’ll see people spilling out the doors. But in order to hold the classes, we need contributions.”
SPARC enrollment is up to 2,300 students and counting, 240 of whom participate tuition-free through the LIVE ART program. This is just a small fraction of the $270,000 SPARC delivers in tuition-free outreach programs, in addition to $25,000 in financial aid toward tuition-based classes. Tuition covers 37 percent of the funds for SPARC’s yearly programs.
Although the generous donations have granted SPARC an open stage to grow, Mraz-Nelson urges that they still need support from the Greater Richmond community to help students-and SPARC employees-perform.
“The Scott’s Addition area is becoming revitalized, and we’re hoping to make SPARC another anchor to the area,” says Mraz-Nelson. “We’re proud to be the premiere performing arts location in Richmond, and we want to stay that way.”
Photos by SPARC