Walmart Heir Alice Walton Donates $40 Million to US Museums

Philanthropist and arts patron Alice Walton is bestowing $40 million in grants upon sixty-four US institutions. Through theAccess for Allprogram, a brand-new funding initiative of her Art Bridges Foundation, Walton will distribute grants ranging from $56,000 to over $2 million to diverse museums including Bellingham, Washington’s Whatcom Museum, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in Santurce. The funding, to be disbursed over a three-year period, is intended to cover costs of “admission, programming, marketing, outreach, and additional efforts that reduce barriers to access,” according to a press release.

Recipients were chosen on the basis of their annual operating expenses and admission costs.RelatedHELEN FRANKENTHALER FOUNDATION SUED FOR “DESTROYING” PAINTER’S LEGACYBMA CREATES PAID INTERNSHIPS HONORING VALERIE MAYNARD Grantees are free to use the funds however they like in order to attract audiences, whether by boosting their profiles through festivals and bilingual programming, extending current free hours, or offering free meals. Walton has said that her ultimate goal is to make participating museums free to attend, but acknowledges that achieving this may be especially difficult given the post-pandemic climate, which has seen arts institutions struggle with rising energy costs and ragged attendance. A recent American Alliance of Museumsreportrevealed that recovery from the Covid-19 crisis has been uneven among arts institutions, with roughly 66 percent reporting that attendance remains down 30 percent from pre-pandemic levels. Nearly one-third of respondents reported a decrease in net operating performance, while roughly a quarter said they had not yet returned to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

“I think that there are a lot of repercussions in terms of mental health and stability for people coming out of the pandemic,” Walton toldNPR. “So I really see this as a crucial point in time where we all need to figure out everything we can do to create that access.” A full list of recipients is below. Akron Art Museum Amon Carter Museum of American Art Art Museum of South Texas Art Museum of West Virginia University Bass Museum of Art Boise Art Museum Chazen Museum of Art Chrysler Museum of Art Cincinnati Art Museum Clark Atlanta University Art Museum Columbia Museum of Art Columbus Museum of Art Dallas Museum of Art Delaware Art Museum Demuth Museum Des Moines Art Center Dixon Gallery & Gardens Erie Art Museum Fairfield University Art Museum Farnsworth Art Museum Figge Art Museum Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum | Florida International University Gibbes Museum of Art High Museum of Art Harn Museum of Art | University of Florida Howard University Gallery of Art Hudson River Museum Hunter Museum of American Art IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts James A.

Michener Art Museum Joslyn Art Museum Kalamazoo Institute of Arts LSU Museum of Art | Shaw Center for the Arts Mattatuck Museum Mississippi Museum of Art Missoula Art Museum Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico New Britain Museum of Art Oklahoma City Museum of Art Olana Partnership at Olana State Historic Site Orlando Museum of Art Palmer Museum of Art | Pennsylvania State University Peoria Riverfront Museum Plains Art Museum Portland Art Museum Portland Museum of Art Riverside Art Museum Saint Louis Art Museum San Antonio Museum of Art San Diego Museum of Art Smith College Museum of Art Speed Art Museum Springfield Museums Studio Museum in Harlem Taft Museum of Art Utah Museum of Fine Arts Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Westmoreland Museum of American Art Whatcom Museum Whitney Museum of American Art Wichita Art Museum Yellowstone Art Museum Zimmerli Art Museum | Rutgers University.