Arts Insider with Carol and Kevin March May 6, 2024

TACA Arts Insider

What ignited your passion for arts giving?

Honestly, we did not take too much interest in the arts until we had children. Our son was first, showing a strong interest in musical instruments when he was barely two, which he maintained into high school, eventually even writing some of his own music. Our daughter followed but spread her wings beyond music to include acting and comedy through college. Both were early and eager fans of Dallas Children’s Theater.

Who and what inspired your decision to support TACA’s Pop-up Grant program as a founding donor?

The idea of Pop-Up grants started back in 2018 when Carol and Tara Lewis, having just been wowed by Soul Rep’s Yellowman, wished for a way to give an immediate TACA thumbs-up. They began tossing around ideas, but the time was not right and TACA did not have a mechanism to do something like that. Fast forward to 2020, during the pandemic and the time WAS right to introduce the program and grant money to shine a light on the innovative, out of the box ways our Dallas arts organizations were keeping their creativity alive and performing in parking lots and even online.

Why is it important to you to support individual artists?

It occurred to us after six months of Pop-Up grants that obviously a lot of people’s livelihoods were suffering, especially people in the arts. To practice their passion, we realized that many artists held jobs that were being hit the hardest by the shutdowns, and income was a real issue for them. That led us to develop the idea of including cash awards (Artist’s Bonuses) along with organization cash grants, with the size of the bonus pool being twice the size of the organization grant, to deliver larger cash awards to the artists. It was our hope that this unexpected extra cash would show our Dallas artists that their audiences really cared about THEM. And when the covid emergency passed, we decided to continue the program, realizing that what we had done here in Dallas with this concept was unique in the art philanthropy space, and just one more, incremental reason, for Dallas artists to stay in Dallas!

What other organizations do you support and why?

In addition to TACA, we continue to be involved at Dallas Children’s Theater – an organization we feel is a cornerstone in our Dallas arts ecosystem. We also are involved in United Way of Metropolitan Dallas where Kevin serves on the UW Foundation Board and Carol serves on the Women of Tocqueville Steering Committee. Kevin also serves on the KERA Board and the Trusted World Advisory Committee. We feel these organizations exemplify nonprofits that invest in making a positive impact in our community and we are proud to support them.

Carol and Kevin March are dedicated philanthropists in Dallas and founding donors of TACA’s Pop-Up Grant program. They are passionate about supporting the arts and nonprofits that invest in making a positive impact in our community. 

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