Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Neal Cuthbert - Season 8, Episode 99

Since his retirement from The McKnight Foundation after 25 years,
Neal Cuthbert has been
consulting with various nonprofits and businesses and recently
served as the Interim Co-
Executive Director of the Cedar Cultural Center. During his last
decade at McKnight Neal was
the Vice-President of Program where all programs and program
staff reported to him and he
oversaw an annual grantmaking budget of $90+ million. While VP he
helped create a workplace that received a national Great Place to
Work awards, national recognition for a highly regarded approach
to philanthropy, created McKnight’s first approach to evaluation,
and led the creation and oversaw the management of several of
McKnight’s funding intermediaries, including Youthprise, the
Southeast Asia Development Program in Phnom Penh Cambodia, and
the six rural Minnesota Initiative Foundations, among
others.

Prior to being VP, Neal was McKnight’s Arts Program Director for
16 years. In addition to
framing up McKnight’s arts program, under his leadership the
program received numerous
awards and provided between $8-12 million annually to support
arts organizations and artistsin Minnesota. In addition to making
grants, he developed several reports including an
examination of arts development in the suburbs, two economic
impact studies, the impact of
the arts in rural communities, and the condition of individual
artists. He also oversaw the
expansion of McKnight’s artist fellowship programs, established
the Distinguished Artist Award, and co-developed the artist
website, mnartists.org. After the Dance Alliance closed he worked
closely with members of the dance community to create two dance
community convenings in order to assess community needs and bring
people together. Prior to McKnight he was the director/publisher
of the monthly art and culture journal, Artpaper, and a planner
at the Metropolitan Council in the arts program and housing
program where he authored several studies including a study of
homelessness, an economic impact study of the arts, and an
examination of arts audiences. Neal was born and raised in
Detroit and in addition to his
consulting work exhibits artwork and curates exhibitions and
programs at Homewood Studios on the northside of Minneapolis,
serving as its Permanent Guest Curator.