Fox Gives is the philanthropic arm of Atlanta’s historic Fox Theatre, dedicated to preserving historic theaters and supporting local communities. Opening in 1929 with nearly 100 years of history, the Fox Theatre has become a driving force of preservation, with dedicated efforts to maintain its original character while inspiring hope and revitalization for other historic venues throughout the Southeast.
Since 2017, Leigh Burns has been the Director of the Fox Theatre Institute, a division of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Before joining the Fox Theatre, she held positions as the Education Coordinator with the Georgia Main Street Program and additionally served as the Outreach Program Manager and Certified Local Government Coordinator with the Georgia Historic Preservation Division.
Most recently, Leigh was named as director of Community Partnerships for Fox Gives, an enhanced community partnerships program dedicated to preservation efforts and support for theaters throughout the Southeast. In this new role, she will focus on the overall success of Fox Theatre’s Multiyear Grant Program and sustaining and leveraging partnerships for Fox Gives. She will also oversee staff of the All-Access Pass Program and will extend bilingual education goals for the nonprofit’s Fox in a Box Program.
Leading Fox Gives, she oversees all grant programs, education, membership, statewide theatre presenting and preservation partnerships. Since 2008, the Fox has awarded $3.2 million dollars in financial support for historic theatres in Georgia and the Southeast. Additionally, her team supports more than fifty-five statewide non-profit theatres and arts centers through Georgia Presenters.
She has twenty-five years of professional historic preservation experience including internships with the National Park Service and the Historic Oakland Foundation and received a Masters of Heritage Preservation Degree from Georgia State University. In 2014, she received an Award of Excellence in Historic Preservation Service from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission.
A native of College Park, Georgia, Leigh resides in Druid Hills and serves on the boards of the Georgia Downtown Association, the Red & Black and Young Harris College Alumni.
Connect with Leigh on LinkedIn and follow Fox Theatre on Facebook and Twitter.
What You’ll Learn In This Episode
- What is Fox Gives, and how did it grow out of the Fox Theatre Institute
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.
Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we wouldn’t be sharing these important stories today on Atlanta Business Radio. We have Leigh Burns, who is the director of community partnerships with Fox Theater Fox Gives. Welcome.
Leigh Burns: Thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me today.
Lee Kantor: Well, for folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Fox gives? How did that begin and how are you serving folks through that?
Leigh Burns: Absolutely. Well, Fox gives is now kind of the the second generation of the Fox Theater Institute, which started in 2008. Anyone who’s from Atlanta probably knows a little bit about the Fox Theater history. And we were saved in the 1970s, and our board has been amazing and really giving us the opportunity to share not only professional development and trainings across the state, but grant funds. We’ve now given away about $4.2 million in grants and have about five different programs to kind of help smaller theaters around our state, and even some in the southeast grow and then continue to have success.
Lee Kantor: So when it comes to the giving part of Fox gives, you mentioned helping the other theaters, but how did that evolve at first? I mean, as you mentioned, the Fox Theater was kind of in a tricky situation in the 70s. And then how did it grow out of it, and how did it get to the point where now you can be so generous?
Leigh Burns: Sure. Well, I mean, you fast forward a couple of decades, and the Fox Theater has been fortunate to really, um, have a great opportunity for selling tickets, for having big events, for earning end earning revenue that could be shared with other theaters. But the step in between that that we saw, where theaters were reaching out to us a lot at the Fox for referrals for work, especially conservation, restoration type work, also with operational advice and the outreach from the theaters became so strong that the board really thought, you know, this would be a great way for us to continue the legacy of our early years as Atlanta landmarks. What people probably don’t realize is the Fox was going to be just one of many buildings that are our first original kind of grandfather board started. And so this gives us an opportunity to work on other historic buildings and pay our successes forward. So of course, first, operating well in the black, having great opportunities with Broadway, with comedy, with dance, with everything, and and making that success known. And then also, I think you have to remember the, the groundswell of kind of a return to Midtown and the success that Midtown’s have. So being able to pay that back around our state has been a huge gift for us.
Lee Kantor: Now, there’s a lot of talk about how movie theaters are struggling. Is live theater not being impacted in the same way that movie theaters are?
Leigh Burns: No, we’re really not seeing that.
Leigh Burns: Um, we’ve had a tremendous Broadway season this year and plan for one next year. I think there’s a couple things at play. I think post Covid, people want that sense of community. Um, they want to experience live theater together. Comedy shows are definitely more successful and more popular than they’ve ever been. I think there’s this sense of that isolation that we felt and needing to come back out and be together to do things and maybe even step off technology and put the phones away and experience something, live together in a shared environment.
Lee Kantor: So you think that in movie theaters, it’s too close to being watching it in their house with their big screen TV? And then that live theater is like a totally different event and experience.
Leigh Burns: We do. I think it’s a very different experience. I mean, obviously there were, um, opportunities to see, um, musicals and things like that during Covid through all kinds of, you know, launch platforms. But we really don’t think you can duplicate the experience of seeing that live and in person here at 660 Peachtree Street. We just think that’s still a priceless experience for most people.
Lee Kantor: So can you talk a little bit about what the day to day looks like? Um, for Fox gives, are you? I’m sure you’re bombarded with requests, but how do you kind of curate and decide? Um, you know how the funds are shared?
Leigh Burns: Sure.
Leigh Burns: So once a year, um, we start that process in July. We have an open application where you, um, submit a letter of intent. Then you’re given access to proceed with the application. Your theater has to be a nonprofit or operated by a city or county. Of course, some of our grants require a match. So you have to come to the table with match for that project. Um, you submit the application. We have a committee of outside reviewers that scores those. We award those by by competition. We award them typically around September. And then you have until the end of the next fiscal year, which actually wraps up for us around June 15th. So it’s a pretty quick process. We usually have about 2020 to 25 applicants for half $1 million in annual funding. So it’s fairly competitive. Um, but we see a lot of theaters and performing arts centers coming back to get multi-levels of funding. So they might start one phase with securing their roof. Then the next year they come in and do historic plaster repair. Then they might wait and come back and work on some things like replacing seats and those kind of things. So everything’s kind of done in phases. Um, but it’s, it’s been very successful. And, and we’re now in our 17th year of Fox gives and so proud of what we’ve been able to share.
Lee Kantor: Now um, is there any effort, um, in the education space with so many cuts when it comes to the arts, whether it’s music or theater programs? Um, from the schools themselves, is there any outreach that Fox does when it comes to education?
Leigh Burns: Absolutely.
Leigh Burns: In March of 2024, we launched our new high school program. It’s called All Access Pass. It provides an opportunity for high school students to come here to the Fox and experience not just a show, but shadowing professionals here at their Fox, at their day to day jobs at the Fox, we also go out to the schools and we work with them, and we really talk to them about not just singing and dancing and acting, but what life looks like for our own careers. For those of us who might work in sound design and light design in marketing. So we have made a conscious effort really to ramp up our education program. We’ve had our Fox in a box program for over a decade, which is our K-5 program. But this expansion into high school has really given us opportunities to look at job development. That was something that our board and when we went out and did strategic planning, really wanted to focus on how we could encourage that. So that’s what the All Access Pass program does.
Lee Kantor: So how do you, um, see Atlanta’s arts and theater community as compared to other kind of similar sized cities out there?
Leigh Burns: I think our arts.
Leigh Burns: Programs are still continuing to grow. We collaborate a lot with our fellow partners around the city. We’ve worked with theatrical outfit Seven Stages. Um, we still have art centers not yet to open. We’ve been working with a community in Grove Park for about seven years, and they’re going to be opening a new performing arts center. So I think the health of performing arts is very strong. Um, in spite of what we’ve seen at the federal level with cuts to NEA and other programs, I really feel like, um, now more than ever, people need this outlet and this place to be social. Around the arts. Um, the high museum is thriving. Center for Puppetry arts. So many of our neighbors. Atlanta Botanical Garden has amazing performance based, you know, opportunity. So we just see it as room for growth. And and we’re excited.
Lee Kantor: Now where do you see some opportunity? Is there any, uh, types of theaters you’d like to see more of, or is there any types of, um, whether it’s more comedy? You mentioned that there’s been a lot more comedy lately. Do we have enough of those and enough diversity around the types of content that’s being made in those venues?
Leigh Burns: Well, I think we’ve started to see a little bit more dance. Um, focus on dance again in Atlanta. It appears that, um, people really are connecting to more of an opportunity to diversify programing. You know, we’re so lucky here at the Fox that we host Alvin Ailey American Theater Company every year in February, and we’ve been able to work with our students around that. We’re just hoping that we can continue to provide the best diverse programing for not just the Atlanta audience, but for the Georgia and with our grants program. You know, if if there’s things that our grantees need, um, to diversify their own programing, maybe they need a spring floor for dance, maybe they need Technology upgrades to their ticketing and website systems. That’s even something that we provide here at the Fox through Technical assistance grants.
Lee Kantor: So, um, how does the the money get generated for Fox gives? Is that donations or is that just built into ticket pricing. Like how do how do you kind of build the funds so that you can, you know, reinvest them into the community?
Leigh Burns: Right. It’s earned income here at the Fox. Um, portions of tickets also concessions, um, some merch. And then of course, we have our amazing ballrooms which earn a, a nice, um, you know, profit for us. So we return that out back into the state. And again, it goes back to our mission of to preserve and share. And so we take a portion of our funds that we earn, and we give it back to communities around our state. We’ve been so fortunate, um, that we’ve been able to do that.
Lee Kantor: So what’s on the, uh, kind of roadmap moving forward? Anything you’re excited about?
Leigh Burns: Well, the roadmap moving forward looks great with grants. We selected a multiyear grant last year. We gave one grant for half $1 million to Hart County Community Theater. They have made a lot of efforts around rehabilitating their facade and beginning to make a lot of upgrades to their interiors. So we’re looking at seeing kind of that investment come to fruition. That’s the largest investment we’ve ever made in a single theater, um, with one check at a time. So that’s really on the horizon. And then our second season, our second, um, school season of our all access pass program will begin. We’re in the selection process right now, so that will begin in September. And just really looking forward to continuing some of these programs and and inspiring youth and, you know, really getting them talking with their other family members about how they can be engaged generationally in the arts.
Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?
Leigh Burns: What we would love more of is.
Leigh Burns: People to support their local theaters. Get out there and volunteer. Um. Get out and come to a performance. Support them. Have their children engaged. You know, all kinds of opportunities around art education. Many of our theaters are in performing arts centers that offer classes, um, that have galleries that sell items to continue their business. So just really being aware of what’s around you. We have a great, um, website where you can find out more about our grants and our theaters we work with, and we would love that engagement.
Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?
Leigh Burns: It is Fox theater.org.
Lee Kantor: All right. Well Lee, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.
Leigh Burns: Thank you so much, Lee. We appreciate this opportunity.
Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.
