Message from the executive office
I am excited to share news welcoming the Whiting Auditorium and the Capitol Theatre to the Flint Institute of Music. The respective boards of the Flint Cultural Center Corporation and Flint Institute of Music have finished exploring the viability of a consolidation of operations of The Whiting and Capitol Theatre to FIM from FCCC. What began as a memorandum of understanding in January 2020 and continued with a lengthy due-diligence process is now complete.
We’re now entering a new phase, which is all about integration of people and programs. FIM anticipates a year-long process to align and transition staff to the new integrated program model, implement a new governance structure and executive management team, and create a new, unified culture and business operation. Throughout the due diligence process, our collective goal has been to make the most prudent use of existing and potential new resources for serving the interests of the community and benefiting the residents of Flint and Genesee County in the long term.
To quickly recap: the FCCC governed and maintained the 501c3 status for The Whiting, Capitol Theatre, Sloan Museum, and Longway Planetarium. The FCCC board had initiated planning for the eventual spin-off of their member programs as independent non-profit organizations. FIM was in a strong position to build on the success of The Whiting and Capitol Theatre with its 100-year history of performing arts education and programming. The efforts over these past 15 months also allowed for a reorganization of the existing cultural center campus resources into three distinct yet related lanes: Performing Arts (FIM), Visual Arts (FIA) and Flint Institute of Science and History (FISH - Sloan Longway).
FIM is excited to officially welcome to its family the Whiting and Capitol staff, members of Local 201 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees; a new family of donors and volunteers, and their families and friends! This will be an exciting, intentional, transformational integration of people and programs, and culture and business operations. We’re excited about what our future can be and how we will all have an opportunity to be part of making it happen.
Over time, some of you may notice more integrated communications once we combine our operations. For example, Whiting and Capitol patrons will start to see correspondence from the Flint Institute of Music. The content of our communications like this newsletter will reflect the addition of Capitol and Whiting pr0grams. We’ll do our best to provide clear, helpful updates as we proceed.
Thank you for your ongoing support of FIM, The Whiting and Capitol Theatre.
My best wishes for a fun, fabulous and safe 4th of July weekend!
