Fox Family Foundation is proud to have supported two respected Durham institutions that share a central attribute: the ability to think expansively about the people they serve without losing sight of their mission.

The New York Times has called American Dance Festival (ADF) one of the nation’s most important dance festivals. With roots reaching back to 1934, ADF has based its summer festival in Durham for nearly 50 years.

Executive Director Jodee Nimerichter describes a mission built around its varied audiences. “At the core, ADF is dedicated to supporting the creation and presentation of new dance works by choreographers at all stages of their careers. We also train and nourish dancers and dance educators through our intensives and professional development programs.” Additionally, ADF helps develop audiences for modern dance: “We are building a network of people who will hopefully become connoisseurs and supporters of the art form.”

When ADF opened the Scripps Dance Studios, a year-round dance studio in Durham, Nimerichter saw a chance to develop that audience closer to home. “By offering year-round classes for all ages and abilities, summer camps, informal showings, a Parkinson’s Movement Initiative and much more, ADF has the possibility of introducing and expanding its audiences. We want people to know that dancing really is for everyone.” This vision is what drew Fox Family Foundation’s interest in providing a multi-year grant in 2022 to support ADF’s endowment campaign for the long-term infrastructure needed for programming and maintenance of the Studios.

Over the years, ADF listened attentively to the needs of its community, finding ways to adapt and grow, while making sure to care for the staff that help make the programming at the studios possible. Nimerichter reflects on the challenge in finding a balance between the two — the needs of the community and staff capacity — but is grateful that ADF found success in that balance by remaining flexible. “Sometimes that means pivoting, and that’s OK!”

Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD), another longstanding Durham nonprofit, draws on a long history of collaboration in serving Durham’s hungry and homeless. Founded in 1983, UMD’s role was initially that of a host site for cooperating organizations to aid those in need. Almost 20 years later in 2001, UMD began operating as a central hub, though the spirit of collaboration still defines the work.

Sheldon Mitchell, UMD Executive Director from 2016 to May 2026 put it this way: “We realize that no one organization can end homelessness or provide all the services that this population needs… We make an intentional effort to partner with the host of other providers in the community.” Fox Family Foundation made its most recent grant to UMD in 2022 providing multi-year, general operating support for ongoing operational needs.

When a string of catastrophic federal funding cuts was announced in 2024, UMD might have halted much of their work to accommodate the losses. Instead, as the cuts rolled out, UMD listened even more intently to the rapidly escalating needs of its community — both partners and the people it served — so its response matched those needs, rather than stepping away from them. UMD committed to maintaining existing services while at the same time planning how to sustain them going forward.

Like many other nonprofits, UMD found themselves needing to make substantial changes in staffing. By keeping open, honest, and consistent communication with staff throughout, Mitchell recalls that everyone respected the nature of the crisis and what was required to continue delivering on mission.

A lesson learned from UMD’s navigation of COVID and its impact on the community is that crisis requires innovative thinking. Mitchell shares, “The escalation of funding cuts and changes certainly resulted in more challenges but also prompted a closer look at how resources could be better utilized.” That kind of in-the-thick-of-things learning has led to improvements in both services and system-wide coordination. For example, while the idea of a day services center has been a community conversation for more than a decade, listening to the mounting needs of people who are unhoused prompted UMD leadership to bring the idea to fruition. The new center opened in April 2026.

For UMD, planning will always be a two-way conversation: the community names its needs and UMD shapes its work in response, including acknowledging what isn’t successful. Mitchell notes, “UMD doesn’t want people to feel like there’s fear when something doesn’t go exactly right. It’s about figuring out how to tweak and adjust, or if needed, stop and pivot to make our work more effective.”

For all their differences, ADF and UMD share one habit that carries them through growth and crisis alike: they are highly responsive to their constituents. Each stays in step with the people it serves, partners with, and depends on as active participants in the work — and lets that responsiveness guide what goes next.

Page image, top: Courtesy ADF, photo credit: Ben McKeown.