SBCT awarded the Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence

In recognition of its outstanding leadership, management, and programs, South Bend Civic Theatre has received the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County’s eighth annual Leighton Award for Nonprofit Excellence.

The Leighton Award, established in 1999, celebrates excellence and sustainability in the nonprofit sector with a $100,000 endowment challenge grant and an unrestricted grant for $10,000. When matched by private contributions, the award will result in a $200,000 fund established with the Community Foundation that will endow South Bend Civic Theatre with permanent annual support.

The Community Foundation chose South Bend Civic Theatre out of a large pool of applicants, marking the first time that an arts organization has won the award. At the Leighton Award ceremony on Thursday, September 8, at Century Center, Community Foundation Chair Edwina Kitner spoke about the theatre’s ability to engage and provoke audiences, noting that South Bend Civic Theatre “takes delight in putting a human face on the issues of our day—making us think about these issues, even if we don’t want to—and deepening our understanding in the process.”

Dick Currey, Chair of South Bend Civic Theatre’s Board, and Executive Director Jim Coppens accepted the award for the theatre.

South Bend Civic Theatre has grown exponentially over the past decade. In 1995, the theater was an all-volunteer organization with six annual productions; now South Bend Civic Theatre stages 16 shows each year. That’s more than any other community theater in Indiana, and those shows create some 350 opportunities annually for area actors. During the same time period, the theater has quadrupled the size of its annual audience to 14,000, increased its volunteer base from 150 to 500, and boosted its contributing membership from 150 to 1,150.

In 1995, South Bend Civic Theatre was the seventeenth largest community theater in the state. Today, it is the state’s third largest, behind the Indianapolis and Fort Wayne Civic Theatres. The theatrer ranks second in the state in terms of net assets.

The organization also works hard to provide a diversified program of productions and activities that represents the entire regional community. Over the past ten seasons, South Bend Civic Theatre has produced fourteen plays with African-American themes and cast. The theater began a similar outreach program with the Latino community in 2004. Education is also a key element of the theater’s mission: More than 3,500 area young people have taken part in South Bend Civic Theatre’s workshops, camps, and performances since 1996.

South Bend Civic Theatre is in the final phase of renovating its new home in downtown’s Scottish Rite Building. This $4-million capital project will be completed in January 2007, allowing the organization to begin its 50th year of operations with two new, state-of-the-art performance spaces that will put South Bend Civic Theatre among the top ten community theater facilities in the country.

The Community Foundation also recognized two runner-ups for the Leighton Award: the YWCA of St. Joseph County and St. Margaret’s House. Both organizations received grants of $10,000 to support their work. The Community Foundation commended the YWCA—which provides women and children with a continuum of services, including transitional and permanent housing, domestic violence services, chemical dependency treatment, and a court watch program—for the progress it has made over the past five years in reshaping and strengthening its organization, and praised St. Margaret’s House for its one-on-one work with women who suffer from poverty, mental illness, addictions, and domestic abuse issues.