As McGroarty Arts Center fast approaches its 60th anniversary (in 2013), the Center’s volunteer Board of Directors are grappling with some big questions about future plans for this beautiful historic site. Led by a strategic plan from growth over the last few years, McGroarty Arts Center has increased services to the community at an unprecedented rate: doubling enrollment and quadrupling event attendance. The Center’s reputation for providing high quality arts experiences for families of all incomes has grown throughout LA County, and some of Southern California’s most prestigious foundations have invested in McGroarty’s programs and services.

Yet with tremendous growth and new sources of revenue in place, the future of the Center is unclear. Most of McGroarty’s 360 onsite classes have reached physical capacity. The thirty-five cultural events, including the Puppetry Festival, Ceramics Exhibition, and Holiday Boutique, that the Center hosts annually will not be able to reach a much larger audience given the footprint the building. The historic site can only hold so many people at a time. And while staff are coming up with creative strategies to meet demand (they have plans to turn one-day events into two-day events, and provide shuttles to alleviate onsite parking), the Board is faced with a question that can no longer be ignored: What will growth at McGroarty Arts Center mean?

Ask a few students at the Center what they’d like to see McGroarty do next, and you will get a lot of enthusiastic answers: a community garden, hiking trails, build a 99 seat theater, an outdoor theater, an amphitheater, a new ceramics studio, a real dance studio, music rooms, and recording facilities. Some of these ideas are mutually exclusive and, with more ideas and opportunities coming to the table, it falls to the Board to create a master plan that guides development of the grounds, building, and programs.

The stakes are high for the Board to get it right. Generations of children have grown up here, with kids, parents, and grandparents all attending classes at the Center. The community is invested in the Center, but their support could quickly dissolve if the direction the Center takes fails to meet the community’s needs. “We’re going to have to balance open space and the potential for new facilities and programs“, says Claire Knowlton, Executive Director. “We know that the grounds, the trees, and the historic building make McGroarty special, and we won’t let plans for growth compromise them.”

The Board and staff are working diligently on the next strategic plan, scheduled for release in July 2011, which will set the vision for McGroarty Arts Center for the next three years. Board members are attending a 2-day strategic planning training downtown at the Center for Nonprofit Management and working with a trusted consultant during the planning process. Knowlton will be meeting with other community leaders to vet the plan, and staff have been surveying students and instructors for input.

“This is a new and exciting place for us to be,” say Knowlton. “For years the only question we had time to ask was how will we keep the doors open. Now we have the resources to ask how we can be better, how we can do more. We have finally have the chance to dream.”