The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is getting in on continued efforts to reenergize downtown Seattle, announcing Tuesday that it is committing $9 million to eight nonprofit arts and culture organizations around the city’s core.
Across visual arts, theater, film and even the improvements being made to Seattle’s waterfront, the grants being issued by the late Microsoft co-founder’s philanthropic arm are intended to increase access and opportunities for audiences and artists alike.
“A vibrant arts and culture sector is critical for our economy and an essential element of any thriving community,” said Anh Nguyen, director of Arts, Youth, and Communities at the Allen Family Foundation, in a news release.
The funding totals $9,427,545 over three years and includes these grantees and projects:
- Base Camp Studios: An artists’ collective with two galleries and affordable artist studios located in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. Funding will facilitate improvements to the previously vacant gallery and community space for proper site accessibility, as well as stabilize artist support and operations. ($200,000 over three years)
- Common Area Maintenance: A multidisciplinary gallery, woodshop, community space, and affordable artist studios run by volunteers in Belltown. CAM will develop a second Belltown site to expand low-cost artist studios and broaden program offerings. ($200,000 over three years)
- Friends of Waterfront Park: A nonprofit organization established in 2012 to partner with the City of Seattle to build, steward, and program Seattle’s Waterfront Park, scheduled for grand opening next year. Funding will support community-led cultural programming at Waterfront Park. ($5 million over three years) … Microsoft committed $3.5 million to the effort last week.
- Seattle Art Museum: SAM offered a long-standing “Free First Thursday” program that was cut short by the pandemic shut-down in 2020. Seed funding will reestablish the evening portion of the program and bring it back to a self-sustainable model through community support. ($500,000 over two years)
- Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall: The investment will enhance and activate public spaces at Benaroya Hall and create an inviting environment that cultivates new and diverse audiences. The grant will support public art displays, public programming, and community performances. ($750,000 over three years)
- Shunpike: Shunpike envisions a community where independent artists and arts groups thrive creatively and economically. Funding will deepen Shunpike’s efforts to empower artists through equitable access to vital expertise, opportunities, and business services in Seattle. ($1,627,545 over three years)
- SIFF: With a mission to create experiences that bring people together to discover extraordinary films from around the world, funding will allow the expansion of the community engagement program, “SIFFsupports,” and improve accessibility conditions to accommodate visitors of all abilities. ($800,000 over three years)
- Theatre Off Jackson: To enhance programming and audience engagement, funding is for operational staffing and facility updates at TOJ’s historic venue in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. ($350,000 over three years).
The eight organizations will meet regularly and work together as a cohort to define a collective agenda and strategies and measure impact of that agenda.
Tom Mara, executive director of SIFF, said the cohort aspect is his favorite part of the grant.
“We’ve come through Covid, and this is a great way to get us outside our organizations, connecting with other arts leaders and finding out, what did they learn?” Mara said. “How are they thinking about the future, and how can SIFF contribute to that?”
The City of Seattle and Mayor Bruce Harrell have listed enhanced arts and culture opportunities as one of the pillars of the mayor’s Downtown Activation Plan. That plan, launched a year ago, also aims to improve public safety, housing affordability, retail opportunities and more.
Getting more people, including office workers, to return downtown in the wake of the pandemic is the goal of Harrell’s plan. Improving and increasing engagement with the arts and the institutions targeted above is the goal of the Allen Foundation’s gift.
“The arts and culture sector contributes significantly to the creative fabric and economic vitality of this dynamic city, drawing millions of visitors from around the region each year,” said Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association.
The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was founded in 1988 by Allen and his sister, Jody Allen, to invest in a number of areas, including arts and culture, science and technology, and research in all areas of bioscience.
According to the foundation, over the years it has supported 180 arts and culture organizations in Seattle through more than $100 million in grants. The Allen family has been longtime supporters of a few organizations in the cohort announced Tuesday, including SAM, SIFF, and the Seattle Symphony. Recent support of other Seattle-based organizations includes Seattle Children’s Theatre, Wing Luke Memorial Foundation, and Seattle Foundation, among others.
Allen’s passion for other arts-related projects included his founding of the Museum of Pop Culture and onetime ownership and restoration of the Cinerama movie theater. He also founded the Seattle Art Fair, an exhibition staged at the Lumen Field Event Center for unique and innovative works, and he launched the Upstream Music Festival and Summit in 2017 to showcase emerging artists in the Pacific Northwest.
Nearly six years after the death of the billionaire Seattle native, the foundation’s efforts to back the arts continue across Washington state. The foundation teamed with Seattle-based nonprofit ArtsFund when it gave $10 million to benefit 811 arts and culture organizations across Washington earlier this year. In 2023, the same amount of funding was directed toward 671 organizations.
A frequent lender to the Seattle Art Museum, works from Allen’s collection were featured in a SAM exhibit in 2019. An auction of 155 pieces from Allen’s art collection raised a record $1.62 billion in November 2022.
