In 1965, Stevens was a consultant in the process that established the National Endowment for the Arts. In June 1967, at age 35, Stevens resigned from his position at the USIA to join the American Film Institute, which was created using NEA funds, as its founding director. Stevens initially ran the AFI out of a suite in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and in his first days on the job began reaching out to American universities with film programs to see how the institute could best aid their efforts to develop the talents of young filmmakers and preserve archival copies of important films.
