In its surprise launch this summer, the Milwaukee-based Ruth Foundation for the Arts stunned and thrilled the arts and philanthropic worlds, giving $1.25 million in unrestricted grants to 78 American arts organizations, including Milwaukee’s Arts @ Large and Milwaukee Film.
New foundations spring up all the time, but rarely on the scale of the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, which was established this year and announces its first grants this week.
Funded by a $440 million bequest from Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, the foundation immediately enters the highest echelons of arts philanthropy. Kohler, who died in 2020 after a career of nurturing self-taught artists, was a scion of the Wisconsin bathroom-fixture fortune, as a member of the eponymous founding family of the Kohler company.
The Ruth Foundation for the Arts (Ruth Arts) marked its debut in the landscape of arts philanthropy with the announcement of its inaugural grant-making cycle. The new foundation is supported by a bequest from the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler II and expects to award grants totaling more than $17 million annually.
Two New Orleans institutions will benefit from the first round of funds: the Rivers Institute and The Black School.
Funded by a bequest from the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, the new Milwaukee-based Ruth Foundation for the Arts is poised to become a major force in American arts philanthropy.
The foundation, which has launched with an endowment of $440 million, plans to ramp up to annual giving of $17 million or more, it said in a statement released Thursday. That annual amount would put the Ruth Foundation at the top of arts giving, Joel Wachs, the president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, told The New York Times.
The Ruth Foundation for the Arts, a foundation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that was recently launched with a $440m bequest from the late vernacular art collector and arts patron Ruth DeYoung Kohler, has announced it will distribute between $10,000 and $50,000 to nearly 80 non-profit art organisations in its initial round of grants.
The inaugural grants will total $1.25m and benefit nationwide organisations that were nominated by artists including Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Nari Ward, Dyani White Hawk, Mel Chin and others. The organisations receiving grants include the Baxter Street Camera Club in New York, Project Row Houses in Houston and the Rivers Institute in New Orleans.
A newly established organization based in Milwaukee will dole out some $17 million in grants annually, putting it on the same as leading philanthropic enterprises like the Warhol Foundation.
For its inaugural round of grants, the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, which has been established through a $440 million endowment from the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, has given $1.25 million to a vast array of 78 arts nonprofits across the United States. The grants have been given out in increments of $10,000, $20,000, and $50,000, depending on the organization’s operating budget.
Real Art Ways has received an unexpected $20,000 grant as part of a new national program acknowledging arts organizations that serve their communities and show uncommon understanding of the artists they work with.
The Ruth Arts Foundation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has awarded a total of $1.25 million to 78 non-profit arts organizations around the country. The individual grants range from $10,000 to $50,000.
A newly formed philanthropic arts organization from Wisconsin is making waves in the Santa Fe nonprofit sector in its first year of grantmaking.
The Ruth Foundation for the Arts is named for the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler, who served as director of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisonsin, until her death in 2020. Its aim: to make the most of its first run of grants with a $440 million bequest from DeYoung. The foundation says in a written statement that it expects to grant roughly $17 million annually. In year one, you’ll find that Santa Fe nonprofits, Alas de Agua Art Collective and the Center for Contemporary Arts, will be among the first cohort of recipients.
The Milwaukee-based Ruth Foundation of the Arts, established with a $440 million endowment from the late bathroom-fixture heiress Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, has announced its presence with an initial $1.25 million in unrestricted grants to seventy-eight unsuspecting US nonprofit arts organizations. The grantees, each of whom received $10,000, $20,000, or $50,000, were chosen by a diverse panel of nearly fifty artists from around the country representing a variety of practices and career stages. Because the grants are invitation-only, many recipients were shocked to learn they were receiving funding.
Ed@culturalcounsel.com
