Mischelle Anderson - Executive Director
The first Executive Director for the Polk Arts Alliance (PAA) originally from upstate New York, she now makes Lakeland her home with teenage daughter Alexis. She comes to PAA with a host of knowledge, experiences and skills in organizational leadership, grantsmanship, business development, communications, nonprofit management, faith and community based training, public policy and planning. She has baccalaureate degrees in Business and Communications and a Master’s in Regional Planning with a major in local government, housing and economic development.
The summer of 2007, she took on the status of ABD in her doctorate program and should finish by the year's end earning her a a doctorate from NOVA Southeastern University in Organizational Leadership with a specialization in Conflict Resolution and Negotiation. She created, “CHOICES” a teen development program which she facilitated for three years at Coleman Bush. She is a trained financial literacy facilitator and wrote a successful grant to the Lakeland Chamber Foundation on behalf of Focus On Leadership where she had the opportunity to provide financial training to minority youth.
She is a Leadership Lakeland graduate, class 18, Focus on Leadership Class I graduate and serves on the boards of Drug Prevention Resource Center, the Workforce Educational Council of the PCC Corporate College, the Youth Development Council of Polk Works, the Friends of the Library, the Diversity Alliance of Lakeland Vision, Heartland for Children, Focus on Leadership Metro Lakeland, the Diversity Alliance Group of USF-Lakeland and the Citizen’s Advisory Board of Lakeland to which she was recently appointed its chair. June 2007, she will complete a double term of seven years of service to the CAC.
She has over ten years serving on the boards of nonprofits and twice that amount of time providing community service in the communities in which she has resided. She is the past alumni association liaison for her LL18 class, member of the board of Literacy Volunteers of American, Northeast Parent and Child Society and served as a member for the Board of Trustees for the Polk Museum of Art and the PAA Board before coming on as its Director.
