NORTH - Key Persons
As co-head of The North Group Inc. which she and Halsey North founded in 1987, Alice North has assisted nonprofit theaters, performing arts centers, arts councils, and museums across the country with fundraising feasibility studies, capital and endowment campaigns, annual operating campaigns, strategic planning, board development and retreats, cultural planning, business plans, and workshops on fundraising, board development, and planning. The North Group Inc. specializes in an integrated approach to planning, board development, and fundraising designed to strengthen an organization's fundraising capacity and effectiveness.
Halsey served as Executive Director of the North Carolina Arts Council, the Charlotte Arts & Science Council, and New York City's Cultural Council Foundation. He also served as Vice President of C.W. Shaver & Company and Director of Corporate Contributions of Philip Morris (now Altria Group). Alice is a former Vice President handling corporate accounts for JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and Bank of America.
Halsey and Alice were both MBAs and, between them, received the Distinguished Service Award from the North Carolina Association of Arts Councils; the Chairman's Award from Americans for the Arts; the Fan Taylor Award from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals for outstanding service, creative thinking, leadership, and significant impact on the profession of presenting the performing arts; in 2013, the FIRST ''Halsey and Alice North Award For Committed Excellence and Service to the Association of Performing Arts Professionals by an Alumni Board Member;'' and in April 2016, Board Emeritus board membership from the League of Historic American Theatres Board of Directors. Halsey was an Overseer and member of the Collections Committee, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Both Halsey and Alice were members of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Friends of Asian Art; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston's Visiting Committee, Department of Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa; Friends of the Freer and Sackler Galleries
"The mission of
The North Group Inc.
is to give our clients
the best service possible,
customized to meet
their needs."
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"The Norths have another
passion outside of the performing
arts and restaurants: contemporary
Japanese sculptural ceramics. . . .
Their collection is considerable
and impressive."
Halsey and Alice were honored by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals on January 13, 2013, and became the first recipients of the:
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Professional Bio
Halsey Miller North, 75, passed away from lung disease on September 17, 2022 at Riddle Village in Media, PA, where he and his wife and professional partner for fifty years Alice Henderson North had lived for the past three years.
Previously of New York City, Halsey was the first person in the United States to receive an MBA in performing arts management (from Rollins College, Winter Park, FL). Halsey also earned a BA in economics (1970, Earlham College, Richmond, IN) and was a graduate of Chestnut Hill Academy (1966, Philadelphia, PA).
He was an early advocate of employing the arts to strengthen community economic development and cultural equity. In 1987, Halsey and Alice co-founded The North Group Inc. As a team, they provided fundraising, strategic planning, and board development counsel for over 200 nonprofit arts organizations across the United States. Notable relationships include multi-year engagements with the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC; Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Kahului, HI; Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, Vienna, VA; Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR; Great Lakes Theater/Hanna Theatre project, Cleveland, OH; Proctors, Schenectady, NY; Clemens Center, Elmira, NY; Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI; Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA; Tampa Theatre, Tampa, FL; and Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Halsey and Alice were pioneering collectors and advocates of contemporary Japanese ceramics. They co-authored two books - Listening to Clay: Conversations with Contemporary Japanese Ceramic Artists (New York: Monacelli Press, 2022) and Contemporary Clay: Japanese Ceramics for the New Century (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2005). They donated works from their ceramics collection to major museums, primarily The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where their works have been on view since 2013. Pieces from their collection are included in the exhibition Perfect Imperfection in Ceramic Art at The Met from April 2022. The Met also houses the database, archives, and library for their collection, all of which is available for research.
The League of Historic American Theatres (LHAT) has stated Halsey was a guiding influence for cultural organizations throughout the United States. His knowledge and expertise of fundraising tools and techniques has been widely acknowledged by academics, arts providers, and fundraising professionals as respected, exemplary, and effective. With Alice, he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in ways that made each organization more creative, capable, and sustainable.
Over the years, Halsey has been honored with many awards, starting in 1988 with the APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) Fan Taylor Award "for outstanding service, creative thinking, leadership, and significant impact on the profession of presenting the performing arts." In 2013, APAP honored the couple as the first recipients of the Halsey & Alice North Board Alumni Award, since presented annually. They were honored with Lifetime Memberships in APAP and the League of Historic American Theatres in recognition for their years of service as board members, teachers, and volunteers.
For 45 years, Halsey and Alice taught fundraising at conferences across the United States, primarily for the League of Historic American Theatres (LHAT), Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), and Americans for the Arts. He championed the phrases "Passion bends reality," to remind nonprofits about the virtue of their work; "Never be in a hurry for the wrong answer," to encourage patience and planning; and "If you want money, ask for advice," to emphasize the need to develop people's emotional connection to the nonprofit organization before asking them for money.
Prior to heading The North Group Inc., Halsey served as Executive Director of New York City's Cultural Council Foundation, Director of Corporate Contributions at Philip Morris Companies, Executive Director of the Charlotte Arts & Science Council and, simultaneously, creator and first Executive Director of Charlotte's Spirit Square Cultural Center -an anchor for the revitalization of Charlotte's downtown, Executive Director of the North Carolina Arts Council, and Managing Producer of the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem.
In addition to his wife, Halsey is survived by his brother William M. North, Jr. and his wife Mary D. North; his brother Edwin M. North and his wife Linda M. North; his nephew and nieces Andrew R. North and his wife Wendy L. North, Julia N. Boerth and her husband Thomas J. Boerth, Barbara C. North and her husband Justin Quimby, and Sandra E. North and her wife Angela Letizia; and his great nephews and nieces Peter M. Boerth, Erich M. Boerth, Caroline M. Boerth, Charlotte R. North, and Carolyn E. North.
Job Titles:
- APAP and Arts Consulting Group, Washington, DC 2024
NYS Arts/Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations in Mattituck
NYS Arts/Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations Board member 1991-1996; co-chair of successful fundraising event in 1994; volunteer 2002-2005
Pennsylvania:
Allegheny Highlands Regional Theatre in Ebensburg
ArtsQuest/SteelStacks Project in Bethlehem
Association for the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville
Cumberland Valley School of Music in Chambersburg
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance in Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in Harrisburg
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
and Pittsburgh Filmmakers in Pittsburgh
Reading Symphony in Reading
Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple
and Lackawana Regional Cultural Council in Scranton
State Theatre Center for the Arts in Easton
Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center in York