ART WORLD NEWS
MacKenzie Scott Grants Go to Studio Museum in Harlem, Souls Grown Deep, and More
MacKenzie Scott, one of the richest women in the world, promised to keep giving her fortune away “until the safe is empty” following her divorce from Jeff Bezos in 2019. Over the past year, Scott has donated some $6 billion to more than 500 nonprofit organizations, and this week announced a new round of grants worth a combined $2.7 billion. The funds will be distributed to 286 higher education, social justice, and arts organizations working to support marginalized and underserved communities.
Among the arts organizations receiving funds are Art for Justice, which was launched in 2017 by collector Agnes Gund and aims to end mass incarceration in the United States; New York’s Studio Museum in Harlem and El Museo del Barrio; Native Arts & Culture Foundation, a Vancouver-based organization that centers indigenous arts as a means for social change; and Souls Grown Deep, a nonprofit group that maintains the foremost repository of works by Black artists from the South.
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Scott said in a statement: “Arts and cultural institutions can strengthen communities by transforming spaces, fostering empathy, reflecting community identity, advancing economic mobility, improving academic outcomes, lowering crime rates, and improving mental health, so we evaluated smaller arts organizations creating these benefits with artists and audiences from culturally rich regions and identity groups that donors often overlook.”
Below follows the cultural institutions included in this round of grants. The full list of organizations can be found here.
Arts Administrators of Color NetworkArts for Healing and Justice NetworkArts Forward FundArt for Justice FundArts MidwestAshé Cultural Arts CenterFoundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants COVID-19 FundsFlamboyan Arts FundGuadalupe Cultural Arts CenterIAIA Museum of Contemporary Native ArtsInternational African American MuseumJapanese American National MuseumL.A. Arts Endowment FundThe Laundromat ProjectMaine Expansion Arts FundMama Foundation for the ArtsMetropolitan Atlanta Arts FundMexic-Arte MuseumMid Atlantic Arts FoundationMid-America Arts AllianceEl Museo del BarrioMuseo de Arte de Puerto RicoMuseum of Chinese in AmericaNational Association of Latino Arts and CulturesNative Arts & Cultures FoundationNew England Foundation for the ArtsOregon Arts and Culture Recovery FundSelf Help Graphics & ArtSouls Grown DeepSouth ArtsSouthwest Folklife AllianceThe Studio Museum in HarlemThe Village of Arts and HumanitiesUnited States ArtistsWestern States Arts FederationWing Luke MuseumYerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)