WALMART HEIR ALICE WALTON DONATES $40 MILLION TO US MUSEUMS
Philanthropist and arts patron Alice Walton is bestowing $40 million in grants upon sixty-four US institutions. Through the Access for All program, a brand-new funding initiative of her Art Bridges Foundation, Walton will distribute grants ranging from $56,000 to over $2 million to diverse museums including Bellingham, Washington’s Whatcom Museum, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in Santurce. The funding, to be disbursed over a three-year period, is intended to cover costs of “admission, programming, marketing, outreach, and additional efforts that reduce barriers to access,” according to a press release. Recipients were chosen on the basis of their annual operating expenses and admission costs.
Grantees are free to use the funds however they like in order to attract audiences, whether by boosting their profiles through festivals and bilingual programming, extending current free hours, or offering free meals. Walton has said that her ultimate goal is to make participating museums free to attend, but acknowledges that achieving this may be especially difficult given the post-pandemic climate, which has seen arts institutions struggle with rising energy costs and ragged attendance. A recent American Alliance of Museums report revealed that recovery from the Covid-19 crisis has been uneven among arts institutions, with roughly 66 percent reporting that attendance remains down 30 percent from pre-pandemic levels. Nearly one-third of respondents reported a decrease in net operating performance, while roughly a quarter said they had not yet returned to pre-pandemic staffing levels.
“I think that there are a lot of repercussions in terms of mental health and stability for people coming out of the pandemic,” Walton told NPR. “So I really see this as a crucial point in time where we all need to figure out everything we can do to create that access.”
A full list of recipients is below.
Akron Art Museum
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Art Museum of South Texas
Art Museum of West Virginia University
Bass Museum of Art
Boise Art Museum
Chazen Museum of Art
Chrysler Museum of Art
Cincinnati Art Museum
Clark Atlanta University Art Museum
Columbia Museum of Art
Columbus Museum of Art
Dallas Museum of Art
Delaware Art Museum
Demuth Museum
Des Moines Art Center
Dixon Gallery & Gardens
Erie Art Museum
Fairfield University Art Museum
Farnsworth Art Museum
Figge Art Museum
Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum | Florida International University
Gibbes Museum of Art
High Museum of Art
Harn Museum of Art | University of Florida
Howard University Gallery of Art
Hudson River Museum
Hunter Museum of American Art
IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts
James A. Michener Art Museum
Joslyn Art Museum
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
LSU Museum of Art | Shaw Center for the Arts
Mattatuck Museum
Mississippi Museum of Art
Missoula Art Museum
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts
Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico
New Britain Museum of Art
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site
Orlando Museum of Art
Palmer Museum of Art | Pennsylvania State University
Peoria Riverfront Museum
Plains Art Museum
Portland Art Museum
Portland Museum of Art
Riverside Art Museum
Saint Louis Art Museum
San Antonio Museum of Art
San Diego Museum of Art
Smith College Museum of Art
Speed Art Museum
Springfield Museums
Studio Museum in Harlem
Taft Museum of Art
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Westmoreland Museum of American Art
Whatcom Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art
Wichita Art Museum
Yellowstone Art Museum
Zimmerli Art Museum | Rutgers University
