The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation has awarded 74 new grants totalling $3.4m to US arts organisations large and small so they can pursue sustainability and clean energy projects. The grants are the latest under the auspices of the foundation’s Frankenthaler Climate Initiative, which has now bestowed more than $17.5m to 249 organisations since launching in 2021. In addition to revealing the latest grantees, the Frankenthaler Foundation has announced that it will extend the initiative another five years.
“The foundation is proud to continue supporting visionary projects that are reshaping the way arts institutions operate,” Elizabeth Smith, the foundation’s executive director, said in a statement. “By extending this initiative, we reaffirm our belief that the arts can play a meaningful role in shaping our shared future.”
The grants fall into four buckets, ranging from relatively small grants ($13,000-$15,000) supporting preliminary and quick-turnaround projects, or scoping grants ($18,000-$25,000) for organisations conducting energy audits and developing climate plans, to technical support grants ($15,000-$50,000) for organisations to push projects to the point of execution, and implementation grants ($25,000-$100,000) for institutions to support or fundraise for larger projects to reduce their carbon impacts.
So, for instance, some of the smaller grants will go specifically to execute discrete projects or develop energy-efficiency plans. Both the Museo de los Santos in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the 500 Capp Street Foundation in San Francisco received $15,000 grants to implement solar panel projects. The Houston-based organisation Diverseworks, the St Louis-based non-profit Counterpublic and the Indianapolis art and nature institution Newfields all received $25,000 grants for energy efficiency planning.
Façade of George Eastman Museum, the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives, which will put its Frankenthaler Climate Initiative grant towards a more energy-efficient roof for its conservation building Photo by Elizabeth Chiang, 2022.
Other grants will support projects to significantly shape institutions' built environments. The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, received a $50,000 grant to replace the roof of its conservation centre with one that is more energy efficient. The Memphis Brooks Museum, which is in the process of constructing a new building, received $50,000 to implement a management system that will allow it to achieve a green architecture certification. And the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, received $100,000 for geothermal heating and cooling at its forthcoming Waniyetu Wowapi Institute & Art Park, which will help it operate as a net-zero facility.
“It is inspiring to see how visual arts organizations continue to make meaningful change through their commitment to sustainability,” Lise Motherwell, the chair of the Frankenthaler Foundation’s board of directors, said in a statement. “With each cycle, the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative supports an ever-growing network of cultural institutions that are taking bold steps to reduce their environmental impact and embrace long-term solutions.”
The latest Frankenthaler Climate Initiative grants come as cultural organisations and efforts to develop clean energy are being targeted by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has vastly diminished (and proposed eliminating) the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It has also taken close to 200 actions to slash federal climate adaptation and mitigation measures. It also comes on the heels of a new study by more than 60 climate scientists, published on 19 June by Earth System Science Data, warning that "human-induced global warming rates are at their highest historical level" and the planet could surpass the 1.5°C warming threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement in around five years.
