Displaying items by tag: fundraising

Pier Sixty was at least a bit calmer last night than the name of the evening’s main event would suggest. The MAD Gala was a lively scene, but more notable for the refinement of its revelers than any chaotic debauchery on their behalf.

But that’s fitting, after all, since the Museum of Arts and Design has recently sought to bring a more cohesive unity to the two wide-ranging charges to which the institution owes its name. Director Glenn Adamson, who has now been with the institution for just over a year, has worked to bridge the arts and design elements of MAD’s programming with a renewed focus on craft, and craftspeople. One need look no further than the museum’s current survey of emerging designers and craftspeople from Latin America to find his vision put in place.

The Smithsonian Institution said on Monday that it planned to raise $1.5 billion by 2017 in its first institution-wide fundraising campaign and had already raised more than $1 billion of that sum from private individuals, foundations, corporations and other donors.

In an era of tighter federal funding the Smithsonian is increasing its private fundraising efforts to pay for its stepped-up ambitions at its sprawling network of museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and research centers, one of the largest collections of museum and research centers in the world.

After two years of fundraising, Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries have finally secured the £2.25 million (approx. $3.6 million) necessary to buy the personal archive of early photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot. Although Daguerre is often credited with the invention of photography, Fox Talbot’s book “Pencil of Nature” was an early development for paper-based processes and the first photographically-illustrated book. The archive includes objects photographed in the book, documents relating to both his work and his personal life, and many other items. The Bodleian Libraries have several plans in the works for the archive including a 2017 exhibition, a catalogue raisonné of his work, and an online archive for scholarly research.

The Art Fund, which led the £15.75m fundraising campaign to save the Wedgwood Museum’s collection from being sold at auction, announced on October 3, that its public appeal has raised the final £2.74m needed.

After its successful Save Wedgwood campaign, the fund plans to transfer ownership of the collection of ceramics, paintings and the archive of the company founded by Josiah Wedgwood in the 18th century to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to protect legal ownership. The V&A in turn will loan the collection back to the Wedgwood Museum in Staffordshire in the English Midlands.

Art Basel sent around a press release this morning to announce their new partnership with Kickstarter, the culture crowdfunding site:

The Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative will aim to catalyze international support for non-profit visual arts organizations worldwide by promoting outstanding projects to Art Basel’s extensive global audience.

With this new initiative, Art Basel will support the non-profit sector of the artworld, at a time when public funding for the arts has been dwindling. Designed specifically for non-profit arts organizations, the Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative will offer visibility and support for a wide variety of artistic projects, including non-profit exhibitions, public installations, films, artist books, education programs, artist residencies, talks, conservation and archiving, and other innovative art projects.

Citing a sluggish art market, Delaware Art Museum leaders now expect to raise only $19.8 million by selling three works of art.

That amount is enough to retire the museum's construction debt from a 2005 facilities expansion. But it's not enough to replenish the museum's endowment, or reserve fund, which helps a nonprofit institution weather economic downturns.

Facing an October deadline from creditors, the museum board voted last spring to sell up to four artworks in its 12,500-piece collection to raise $30 million to repay the construction debt and replenish the endowment, which had been depleted for years to cover operational expenses. After exhausting fundraising efforts, officials said the museum was in danger of shutting down.

A rendering of the new Museum for African Art, with its soaring four-story wall, curved ceiling of rare Ghanaian wood and elaborate spiraling staircase, still sits on an easel in an unfinished concrete skeleton facing Central Park.

But those distinctive features and the $135 million budget that would have paid for them have now been shelved. After years of outsize promises and repeated postponements, officials now acknowledge that fund-raising travails have compelled them to scale back the grand design for the museum’s new home on Fifth Avenue.

The Institute of Contemporary Art has completed a $50 million fund-raising campaign meant to boost its endowment, pay off a small amount of debt from the construction of its building, and support its operating budget over the next five years.

The campaign’s completion, announced to the museum’s trustees on Wednesday, marks an important step in the ICA’s effort to create more year-to-year stability. The museum’s endowment will increase from just under $10 million to $25 million. That’s still small for an institution that has a $13 million annual budget and has had around 200,000 people a year visit the Fan Pier building it opened in 2006.

“The old ICA really had no endowment,” said board president Chuck Brizius. “I think everybody knew this is where we were headed. Now that we’ve done this as a first step, we’re getting ourselves in a better position.”

The Detroit Institute of Arts has been pledged a  total of $13 million by New York-based The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Los Angeles-based J. Paul Getty Trust. The pledge will be put toward the DIA’s commitment to raise $100 million as part of a “Grand Bargain” that will help the city of Detroit emerge from bankruptcy, support city pensioners and protect the museum’s art collection for the public.

The $13 million consists of up to $10 million from the Mellon Foundation and $3 million from the J. Paul Getty Trust. Mellon has pledged $5 million immediately, with the full amount contingent on the museum raising sufficient matching funds to meet its $100 million fundraising requirement.

Joining a trend toward major expansions, the Frick Collection, known for its intimate, jewel-box galleries, will announce on Tuesday plans for a new six-story wing that will increase its exhibition space, open private upstairs rooms, and offer views of Central Park from a new roof garden on East 70th Street.

With its proposal, the Frick joins a roster of museums across the country that are enlarging, a sign perhaps of increased competition for the cultural spotlight, as well as a rebound in fund-raising since the dark days of the economic downturn.