Minot Area Council of the Arts release
The Executive Board for the Minot Area Council of the Arts announces the departure of its Executive Director Justin Anderson. Anderson has been an active member of MACA since 2017, first as a member and Board Member and beginning in the fall of 2018 as the Executive Director.
During his time as Director, MACA was awarded the Governor’s Award for the Arts for Arts Organization and received several grants including large grants from Arts Midwest and the National Endowment for the Arts. “I am probably most proud of our $250,000 NEA grant which allowed MACA to provide funding to North Dakota artists and organizations supporting arts,” Anderson said. Anderson was also recognized by his peers in the nonprofit community as the 2022 Emerging Leader at the Alliance of Nonprofits’ annual awards ceremony.
Since 2018, Anderson has helped to re-brand the Minot Area Council of the Arts with not only a new mission, vision, logo, and website, but with many new outreach events. He expanded the popular “Arts in the Parks” program into “Arts in the City” which brought concerts and art downtown every Thursday in June and July starting in 2021. This free, weekly festival brought together artists and vendors and helped bring people downtown. “Thursdays downtown really built on what was formerly Creative Night Out,” said Beth Kjelson, owner of Artmain, “Justin put a lot of work into it and it made a huge
impact for many of us downtown. We will miss his leadership.”
Additionally, Anderson started a youth advisory committee (MACA-YAC) to get youth involved in Minot-area arts, has brought international artists to area schools to provide free programs and concerts through World Fest, and has served on several committees to ensure the arts community has a voice in tourism, government, and commerce.
“Justin has made a huge impact to the arts community in Minot,” said MACA Board President Kelly Matalka, “and we are very grateful for his dedication and look forward to continued partnerships with him.” Anderson will be starting a new role with the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at MSU in March and will continue assisting MACA during its leadership transition.
While Anderson says that work has begun and will continue on Arts in the City 2024, his last set of events as Executive Director will be a round of World Fest at the end of the month. Latin Alternative band LADAMA will be spending a week with the Minot Area Council of the Arts presenting workshops at area schools and participating in public events such as their final concert on March 2nd. More information about Ladama’s visit
can be found at the Minot Area Council of the Arts Facebook page, or by calling the office at (701) 852-2787. All World Fest events presented by MACA are free.
The Minot Area Council of the Arts is accepting applications to fill the Executive Director position.
