Kennedy Center Leader Says He Will Extend Term and Keep Emphasis on Arts Management

Officials at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, have announced that the arts institution has received a $22.5-million commitment from one of its board members. And they say that Michael M. Kaiser, the center’s respected and longtime leader, will remain in his post as president through 2014.

The pledge of $22.5-million, from Betsy and Dick DeVos, includes $20-million to establish an endowment to support the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute, which will be named for the donors; and $2.5-million, to be paid over five years, to support the operating costs of the management institute.

After his extended term as president of the center ends, Mr. Kaiser will continue to serve as head of the management institute until 2017. He established the institute in 2001.

Betsy DeVos has served as chairwoman of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees’ Development Committee and has been a board member since 2004, when she was appointed by President George W. Bush.

Her six-year term ends today. She founded, along with her husband, the Windquest Group, a privately held investment management firm in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Mr. DeVos is a retired president of Alticor, the umbrella company of the Amway Corporation, which was co-founded by his father, Richard DeVos. Dick DeVos also is a past chief executive of the Orlando Magic basketball team.

Mrs. DeVos says she, her husband, and Mr. Kaiser started talking about making a gift to support the institute about seven months ago as a way to expand the arts management-training program to more people and more parts of the country.

“We hope that thousands and thousands of arts managers will become highly effective managers of their organizations and that new ones that haven’t even thought about going into arts management will think about it and have the opportunity to train with Michael and his team,” said Mrs. DeVos in a phone interview.

The news that Mr. Kaiser plans to stay on as president through the end of 2014 is significant, say arts leaders.

He has been in that post since January 2001 and is considered the country’s top-performing arts administrator and the go-to guru for struggling performing-arts organizations.

Mr. Kaiser said in an interview that the pledge provides much-needed resources in the short term, “but more importantly, what it does is it gives me the sense of continuity that I will be able to do this work and that I don’t have to worry that the institute is going to disappear from year to year.”

He said the pledge from Mr. and Mrs. DeVos was not the sole reason he decided to extend his term as president of the center.

“Clearly, yes, knowing that I had these resources was certainly important for me in terms of staying here, but there were other reasons for me wanting to stay as well,” he said, citing conversations with his former board chairman, Stephen A. Schwarzman, whose term ended today, and his current chairman, David M. Rubenstein, who have been encouraging Mr. Kaiser to stay on.

Mr. Kaiser laughs at a suggestion that he could end up running the Kennedy Center well past the end of his new term. “I’ll be 64. I’m not planning that far ahead.”