Investing in Diverse Art Museum Leadership

Investing in Diverse Art Museum Leadership

Expanding access to the arts is one of Alice Walton’s lifelong passions, from opening Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2005 to creating Art Bridges Foundation in 2017. Likewise, since its founding, the Alice L. Walton Foundation has endeavored to support equitable and inclusive access to the arts and art museums as one of its core missions. The foundation continues to support this work with the Leadership in Art Museums initiative.

Working in collaboration with the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation and the Pilot House Philanthropy, the Alice L. Walton Foundation is supporting the development of the Leadership in Art Museums (LAM) initiative. Over the next five years, the LAM initiative will provide over $11 million in grant funding to museums to increase racial equity within leadership positions.

The LAM will build on past and current initiatives to create more opportunities for racial equity in art museum leadership positions. By welcoming new partners — the Mellon Foundation and Pilot House Philanthropy — the LAM is supported and shaped by a growing number of key initiatives. These initiatives include the Mellon Foundation’s ongoing Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey which aims to increase museum diversity, the newly developed Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums and the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative (DAMLI).

Museums are vital public spaces that accentuate civic discourse. They play a critical role in fostering dialogue, creative expression, community engagement and fortifying democratic principles in their communities. Museum leadership plays a key role in determining the art on display in these cultural institutions. As such, it is important to have diverse leadership to ensure museum displays accurately reflect our communities.

“Ultimately, the future of museums depends on their ability to stay relevant and serve their communities,” said Alice Walton, philanthropist and founder of the Alice L. Walton Foundation. “The LAM museums represent a variety of regions across the U.S. and help ensure that we’re increasing access to museum roles in a way that’s inclusive of communities of color, no matter where the art institution is based. With this dedicated group of funding partners, we’re united in our commitment to achieve long-lasting impact.”

Recent studies have found a significant underrepresentation of non-white populations in institutional leadership roles and displayed artwork at major institutions. According to the Mellon Foundation’s Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey, only 20% of museum leadership and 20% of conservator staff identify as non-white. According to a 2019 study, only 1.2% of works in all major U.S. museums were created by Black artists, with 9% for Asian artists and only 2.8% for Hispanic and Latinx artists.

“If we want the arts in this country to stay vibrant, moving and transformational, it’s imperative that these institutions bring in more diverse perspectives and lived experiences,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. “Leadership in Art Museum’s vision is to grow and invest in diverse leadership at U.S. art museums to ensure their excellence and relevance in the future.”

With the additional support that the LAM grants can provide, museums have the ability to bring in more staff, develop new programming and provide training for staff that advances internal cultures of health and wellbeing while also supporting the development of the external community culture. The grants also aim to support engaging with diverse audiences by enticing more visitors to explore these museums’ collections and programs. LAM funding will help create new opportunities and leadership positions that can drive inclusivity, including curators, conservators, collections managers, community engagement staff, educators and other senior leadership positions.

The LAM project’s competitive and thorough selection process found 19 museums to receive LAM grants to create and sustain new leadership positions. These museums pledge to make these positions permanent. The museums also pledge to develop a diverse pool of applicants when hiring for these positions in a manner that is inclusive of communities of color, including Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Arab, Asian and Pacific Islander communities.

The LAM recipients are diverse institutions with local and national impact spanning geography, size and cultural focus. As a shared goal, they are fully committed to developing and nurturing museums’ leadership roles that will create a more inclusive art world.

The 2023 museums receiving LAM grants:

Arizona State University Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, Florida
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan
MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas
Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi
Museum of the City of New York, New York, New York
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Illinois
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, New Jersey
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts
Perez Art Museum Miami, Florida
Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, California
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Seattle, Washington