Patricia A. Porter
Founding Executive Director and CEO of Business for Culture and the Arts, (BCA), a coalition of 110 major corporations in North Texas committed to expanding business support for and involvement in arts and cultural organizations.
For more than thirty five years, she has directed arts agencies, managed internal and external communications programs, developed fundraising strategies, devised marketing plans and institutional promotions, and directed image creation for corporate, academic, agency, and nonprofit institutions.
Ms. Porter began her career at the Dallas Museum of Art as the Director of Public Programs and Publications, working for ten years with artists such as Henry Moore, Andy Warhol, and Louise Nevelson.
She then moved to Southern Methodist University where she served in the central administration as Associate Vice President for University Relations and was also Co-Founder and Director of the Tate Lecture Series for five years.
At the request of corporate leaders in the Dallas Citizens Council and Raymond D. Nasher, Chairman, she established the Southwest’s only business/arts advocacy agency (NTBCA) in 1988. Under her leadership the agency has pioneered and successfully implemented numerous systemic programs, including the Leadership Arts Institute, On My Own Time, ArtWorks, The Art of Business and the Obelisk Tribute. Since the business/arts advocacy agency was established, corporate gifts to nonprofit arts and cultural agencies in North Texas have increased from $4.2 M to $28.6 M in 2008. Critical economic growth data has been captured in the Economic Impact Study of North Texas Nonprofit Arts and Cultural Agencies since 1990 in a collaboration with Deloitte, LLP and utilized by NTBCA to demonstrate return on investment to business.
Throughout her career, she has served as consultant to corporate and city agencies and currently serves as a board member for two state arts advocacy agencies, five arts groups, two foundations, and three universities. She is married to Bob Porter and is the mother of three sons and grandmother of four princesses.