Dear Community:

We are excited to provide you with several updates on positive things happening at YMI Cultural Center.

First, the Board recently updated YMI’s mission, vision and values along with adopting a new Three-Year Strategic Plan.  We are excited to share these with you as we look into the future with optimism.

Our updated mission is to “empower the Black community to celebrate its rich cultural heritage through programs that preserve and promote African American arts and traditions with a commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion”.  

Our vision is “uniting diverse collectives to elevate the richness of Black culture while fostering authentic appreciation of Black heritage”.  

We will live into our mission and vision through our new five core values:

• HONOR our history and legacy

• COMMITMENT to the Black community

• STEWARDSHIP of all funds entrusted to us

• ACCOUNTABILITY to honor our commitments

• TRANSPARENCY in the way we communicate our actions

Our new Strategic Plan has three key initiatives that you will see come to life over the coming 1-3 years:

• SOLIDIFYING YMI AS THE CORNERSTONE OF THE BLACK EXPERIENCE 

• Promote a unified identity

• Connect our community

• Expand stakeholder support

• Strengthen the black economic impact

• INCREASING OUR IMPACT THROUGH EFFICIENT OPERATIONS

• Strengthen our programs

• Improve internal operations

• Ensure transparent enduring governance

• ENSURING SUSTAINABLE RESOURCES TO FULFILL OUR MISSION 

• Create financial sustainability

• Optimize our facilities

Second, we are moving forward to fill two critical positions, Finance Manager and Executive Director.  Both positions are essential for us to lead the organization into the future.

Next, we continue to have positive traction with our capital campaign with us having raised over $4 million toward our $6.4 million goal!  Thank you again for your contributions toward that goal.  

Additionally, several new grants have been received that support our ability to kick off new programming.  We anticipate those new programs being started around the same time we move into our new facility, which is targeted for the first quarter of 2024.  

There is so much happening at YMI that you can expect to see regular updates through a quarterly newsletter starting in October as a means of keeping you informed.  Of course, we always invite you to visit our website that has more day to day information as well.

We want to share a brief word about the pending lawsuit because we have had many of you ask about the situation.   We hope you can understand that this is a confidential matter that we are not at liberty to discuss.  But please be assured this is being handled by our expert legal team and it is our intent to reach a positive resolution to this litigation.  

The Board has assigned Chair Anthony Thomas to act as the lead contact to the legal team.  Doing this has allowed the rest of the board and staff to remain focused on moving YMI forward.

As you can see, we are doing just that!

We hope you are as excited as we are about the future vision and goals for YMI Cultural Center.  You can expect to be hearing and seeing a lot from us as we have great momentum carrying us forward.

Please reach out directly if you wish to connect at Info@YMICulturalCenter.org or 828-257-4540.

Warm Regards, 
YMI Cultural Center Board of Directors

Anthony Thomas
Macky Bah
Patrick Crudup
Tiffany DeBellot
Nina Ireland
Stephanie Lee
Micah MacKenzie
Julia McDowell
Anthony McPherson
Nex Millen
Iindia Person
Jeremiah Robinson
Sherman Williams