Giving Forward
Who: Dan Heit
What He supports: Community Access Memberships
Why it matters:
“Hopefully the Community Access program serves a little bit as a fulcrum for community- building. And for people to have a chance to intersect, to converse with people from parts of the city that they otherwise might not engage with.” –Dan Heit
The summer he turned 16, Dan Heit discovered what it was like to be lonely in one of the most exciting cities on the planet.
Dan had relocated with his family from a sleepy little town in the Catskill Mountains to New York City, where his father had taken a new job. It was a change that was both thrilling and frightening, but the culture shock and absence of the girlfriend he left behind caused Dan to feel a little lost.
As he worked through his transition, Dan found refuge in the city’s great palaces of culture like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“I think it really awakened in me a love of art and of museums,” Heit says.
Heit says he never forgot the critical refuge that museums provided him during a time when he was personally unsettled. That memory, and his professional life working with marginalized populations, is what drew him to support the Carnegie Museums’ Community Access program, which provides complimentary memberships to teens, discounted memberships for low-income families and individuals, and free access for visiting groups from the region’s community-based nonprofits.
“The program really combined with my interest in helping people find a way forward in their lives,” Heit says. “The population that JusticeWorks serves most likely doesn’t have the resources or inclination to enjoy museums. I know in my own life that museums can be a place of refuge, of nourishment, and a way of enriching my life. The Community Access program for me powerfully combines those elements.”
Community Access Memberships grew out of Carnegie Museums leadership’s vision to open up access to the museums following its 125th anniversary in 2020. Announced in October 2021, the Community Access initiative also aims to expand lifelong learning experiences through more teen-centric offerings and programming targeted to seniors. Donor support in honor of Carnegie Museums’ 125th anniversary made the launch of the program possible.
Currently, more than 20,000 teens are complimentary members, 3,400 families and individuals who qualify for public assistance have signed up for $20 Family Access Memberships, and 130 regional social-services organizations are bringing up to 10 clients per visit, free of charge, to all four Carnegie Museums.
Heit believes in the ability of museums to nurture people and provide a safe, inspiring place as they find a path forward in their lives. His public high school in New York City had more students than the entire population of the town where he grew up. And yet, during his junior year, Heit says he barely spoke to anyone, preferring instead the quiet of the galleries at the Whitney, the Met, and the Museum of Modern Art. Spending this time alone with his thoughts while wandering among the great masters became a kind of therapeutic practice that helped him find his own path—behavioral psychology.
Heit earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology and became a nationally renowned expert on behavioral health, advising multiple presidents on drug legislation and health care reform. In 1999, he founded JusticeWorks Youth Care, which helps youth and families in need resolve issues in their lives.
A through line of his life has been helping people who are struggling to find a way forward. Heit says that museums can help do that work by providing a space for people to find connection—with a piece of art, a science exhibition, or another person. Programs like Community Access Memberships also bring more people of varying backgrounds together to appreciate culture.
“Hopefully the Community Access program serves a little bit as a fulcrum for community-building,” Heit says. “And for people to have a chance to intersect, to converse with people from parts of the city that they otherwise might not engage with.”
