The Excellence of Dance Initiative, created by the Chicago Community Trust in 2001, was a short-term research and advocacy project designed to strengthen the Chicago dance community. Its purpose was to learn more about the issues and needs of the area dance field, to study the impact of past giving in dance, and to identify and develop some demonstration projects that might be funded by the Trust.

Overseen by Chicago Community Trust’s senior advisor Sarah Solotaroff, with the information generated from reports of the firm Callahan Consulting for the Arts and the firms of Carol Fox and Associates and Slover Linett Strategies, the Excellence in Dance Initiative’s activities were composed of several elements. One was to implement a dance mapping project which would document the size and scope of existing dance activity in the Chicago area. Another activity was to convene an Advisory Committee composed of members of the city’s dance community to assist in identifying fundable projects, especially in the creation of new works, in the education of young talent, and in audience development. Also, through the years of the Initiative there was increasing recognition of the need to serve dance communities that would not receive grants, so this led to the Planning Process for Small to Mid-sized Companies and Independent Artists in Dance (SMID) which documents services available to artists and small groups. An audience development project, with initial support from the Trust, coincided with the SMID report.

By 2005, the Trust had shifted its arts grant-making priorities to concentrate on arts education. Therefore, the function of its specific initiative focusing on dance funding came to an end, though several projects continued to seek support from other donors and foundations, such as the one aimed at audience development.