WALLACE FOUNDATION GIVES OVER $7 MILLION TO SAN FRANCISCO ARTS GROUPS

The Wallace Foundation, the culture-minded philanthropy financed by the Reader’s Digest fortune, has formed an unusual alliance with two local organizations, the private San Francisco Foundation and the city’s Grants for the Arts, to fund the efforts of local arts groups to expand and diversify their audiences, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Tuesday, at a ceremony at Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office, the Wallace Foundation, based in New York, announced it was giving $7.7 million to the local arts scene. Of that, $6.3 million will be for multiyear grants to eleven San Francisco arts groups and $1.47 million will go to the San Francisco Foundation to create a “learning network” with Grants for the Arts that will link Bay Area arts groups and help them use the latest technology to build their audiences. “We created these awards to draw national attention to the importance of engaging more people in the arts,” Wallace Foundation president Christine DeVita said in a statement.