The Fund Innovator: Bridgitt Evans
“There is comfort in giving to a peer-organized collective.”
5 Questions with Bridgitt Evans
President and Founder, VIA Art Fund
Boston, MA
Bridgitt Evans cofounded VIA Art Fund in 2013 and currently serves as President with responsibility for the organization’s strategic and operational business plan. Evans is an avid contemporary art collector and philanthropist with significant business and nonprofit management expertise.
VIA Art Fund stands apart in the landscape of contemporary arts funding as a collective, democratic initiative that connects art patrons with contemporary visual arts. Emphasizing direct engagement with today’s artists, VIA supports projects that exemplify grantmaking core values of artistic production, thought leadership, and public engagement and accepts grant proposals for the production, exhibition, public dissemination and institutional acquisition of new works of art and ideas, with a particular emphasis on works mounted beyond traditional exhibition environments. Since its founding in 2013, VIA Art Fund has built a coalition of dedicated philanthropists and family foundations across the United States and has awarded nearly $5 million in grants to a growing number of groundbreaking artists and leading cultural institutions.
1. Tell me about how the VIA Grantee Relief Fund came to be, and the speed at which you responded?
As a national funder of the arts, one who prides itself on bringing new ideas and new funders to the sector, we knew VIA Art Fund had to respond to the unprecedented health and economic crisis brought on by COVID-19. We further knew our response needed to be immediate. This was not something we could highly vet or analyze or parse out in our typical rigorous fashion. These funds were needed now. We also thought about scale. We didn’t want to cannibalize our existing grant programs and we don’t have an endowment. We could only grant what we could incrementally fundraise.…and virtually, in a matter of days. Equally important was our commitment to stay true to our philanthropic ethos and values. We needed to continue to deliver on our promise of transparency and true donor participation and agency, and to honor our grantmaking core values of Artistic Production, Thought Leadership and Public Engagement. Those had to continue to be our guiding principles.
The bulk of VIA’s grantmaking is forward-commitment funding for the production of new works of art to be exhibited in the public realm. Several years ago, the VIA partnership voted to allocate 20% of our total grantmaking for general operating support for small, nonprofit alternative art spaces and discursive platforms spread-out across the country. We call it our Incubator grant category targeting community-driven, artist-centric vital “incubators” of both artistic ideas and critique. Through these grants, VIA serves a more nascent artist and a more “local” public. And so, we wondered, in the time of coronavirus, how would these organizations fare? Obviously, they wouldn’t qualify for the artist-direct emergency funding nor would they have the deep-pocketed trustees of the largest institutions and we questioned if they would have the bandwidth to navigate the possible public relief mechanisms. Simultaneously, we’ve always seen these organizations as lean and mean, and extremely nimble. Would they be the ones to pivot quickly and to respond in a compelling manner with new, relevant, and thought-provoking programming?
So, we looked back to our own VIA grantee community. We already knew these organizations, and knew them well having vetted their leadership, programs, audiences, and impact. And our partnership had previously, collectively, chosen to support them. Armed with a plan of impact while honoring our values, we raised nearly $350,000 in just 10 days for the VIA Grantee Relief Fund and 20 days later had touched base with all 25 grantees and disbursed the funds. Our hope is that these awards not only provide sustenance during the immediate crisis but also provide encouragement and support for compelling programming yet to come.
2. Arts Funders Forum research showed that people want more “collaboration and partnerships” and “new funding vehicles” in the arts. VIA is a leader of a collaborative new funding vehicle. How might this moment accelerate that shift?
From our own experience and by looking at the success of other consortiums of funders, this is a great moment to “collectivize” and harness groundswell support. An inherent and enduring strength in a collective initiative such as ours is that we have built an incredibly strong, connected community who trust in our work as stewards of their philanthropy. They feel the power of their impact in far greater magnitude than they could create on their own. At this moment, we all want to help. Indeed, we experienced for ourselves the cycle of positive reinforcement from seeing one another’s generosity in our own concentrated VIA Grantee Relief Fund fundraising efforts. After we passed our initial deadline and announced our fundraising success to our donors, we received a flood of new pledges adding again one-third to the total. Similarly, the Artists Relief fund surpassed even its own founders’ expectations, in part because it reached a certain size where foundations and donors were joining not only for the impact of $5,000 grants to 100 artists a week, but for the magnitude of what the fund could mean beyond this moment.
We’re also seeing the power of our grantees seeking funding as a consortium. This is attractive to donors who know they must move swiftly in this time of exceptional need but don’t have time to vet individual organizations. There is comfort in giving to a peer-organized collective. One such consortium was comprised of 15 small, New York City based arts organizations who banded together with an urgent, shared narrative. As a group they could approach individuals and family foundations that might have taken months or even years to cultivate. They could ask for larger gifts for a more significant need and offer the breadth of impact spread across the consortium. Organizations who for years admired and supported each other suddenly had an urgent need to work together. There is significant promise in this consortium for continued operational and programmatic synergies that go well beyond the financial construct.
3. How do you think this crisis might change the landscape of cultural patronage, and society’s view of the arts as a whole?
History shows that crises such as the one we are currently facing often disrupt the status quo or at the very least serve as inflection points for new paradigms or accelerators for emerging trends. This will certainly be no exception.
What it means for art and society is an incredibly complicated question, but my gut feeling is that it will serve as an accelerator for trends we have already been seeing. We heard loud and clear at the inaugural Art Funders Forum in December that there is a need to change the national narrative surrounding art. The fact that art delivers a social good is simply not a shared national belief. Nor do we have a heritage such as we see in Europe, passed down for generations, that art is important. Until that happens, I fear we cannot count on any expansion of top-down public support and in fact, we know there have been recent calls for eliminating federal public funding all together.
But the collectives and consortiums we’ve previously mentioned could be the beginning of building awareness, support and a call to action for the proliferation of a more vibrant national arts funding ecosystem. I’ve long maintained that there simply aren’t enough social entrepreneurs in the arts philanthropy space to harness and direct the passion that exists. And because art patronage has historically been such a local civic pursuit, we’ve not evolved as an industry to create or offer a broad array of ideas and models to meet the interests of today’s patrons. We also haven’t done a great job of articulating to the general public the inherent value of art or how most contemporary artists are seeking a discourse on our current human condition, a discourse that breaks through socio-economic barriers and that all can participate in. Thus, the industry has been stuck in an out-of-date funding paradigm characterized by a limited number of sizeable donations contributed by a small community of “enlightened” patrons.
Our museums, our producers of knowledge, interpretation and historical reference, are increasingly embattled from all sides and asking themselves, “What does it mean to be a civic cultural institution today and in the future”. Many are working to extend their reach beyond the museum walls. Interestingly, while museums are closed, we see a return of emphasis as to how these organizations can best serve their local communities. Some facilities are being utilized as food banks and educational staff are creating art curriculum for local schools, creative kits for toddlers and on-line cooking classes. Perhaps this is a time of heightened focus on relevance, and it will push the sector forward on an accelerated path to meet the public’s demands, both for more relevant, connected programming but also for more education and access points for appreciation of what art can be.
4. We have seen all programming go virtual. How do “quarantine audiences” become long-term audiences, members, and donors?
This question has to be uppermost in everyone’s mind. Again, you’re asking the tough questions. There obviously is great opportunity to reach new and expanded audiences through virtual programming. No doubt people are tuning in more. But I confess the offerings have built to a point I think fatigue has set in for many of us. One of the most sanguine comments I’ve heard lately is that we shouldn’t just be physically moving content off the walls or our talks off the stages and putting them onto the internet. Internet activity, particularly among younger generations, is already trending away from a content-posting, social media push mentality and moving towards more participatory, smaller-group communal gatherings around shared interests.
For example, at VIA we know we cannot simply curate and push out to our donors a selection of the incredible offerings of content being provided by all manner of arts organizations. We have to move our own educational programming online because we cannot currently meet with our grantee artists in person. But we can create small group virtual sessions so that everyone has a chance to engage with the content, at least intellectually through asking questions and debating ideas, in nearly the same way we do in a physical setting. You must engage people experientially online with an emphasis on forging a connection; otherwise, the viewer will evaporate as soon as the virtual segment has ended. Of course, for arts organizations with physical spaces, this time must be used to draw in new constituents who will be motivated to seek a closer connection to the organization when the cultural producer re-opens.
5. As a collector, have your activities been impacted?
The current health and economic crisis is overarching in its effect. It is without a doubt the most significant event in my lifetime and I fear the economic impact is only beginning to be felt. Certainly, my energies as an art collector have diminished, at least in the short term. I am focusing my time on raising relief funds; helping out where we can in the communities in which we live; supporting, both financially and holistically, all of the nonprofits and nonprofit leaders we know; staying in close touch with friends and family, and yes….cooking dinner every single night!
These days my art collecting is more focused, more particular and yet I am always looking for that voice or presence that immediately grabs my attention. Am I still buying art at this moment? Yes, in fact I recently acquired a piece from an artist whose work I only encountered this year. Would I buy art from an art fair presented on a digital platform? Absolutely, particularly if I know the artist’s work and have a relationship with the gallerist.
Bridgitt Evans cofounded VIA Art Fund in 2013 and currently serves as President with responsibility for the organization’s strategic and operational business plan. Evans is an avid contemporary art collector and philanthropist with significant business and non-profit management expertise.
Previously, Evans worked for AEW Capital, a real estate investment firm where she was responsible for direct investing and portfolio management on behalf of the firm’s institutional investors. Evans has held numerous leadership positions on non-profit boards and currently serves on the Executive Committees of The Telluride Foundation and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and as a member of Harvard Business School’s Board of Dean’s Advisors.
(Photo by Susan Young)