Ruth Foundation for the Arts Awards Fall Core Grant to Self Help Graphics
On November 18, 2022, the Ruth Foundation for the Arts (Ruth Arts) announced its newest cycle of grantmaking programs: Thought Leaders, which awards recipients $300,000 in the next three years, and the Core Grant, which awards recipients $50,000. Self Help Graphics is a Fall “Core” Grantee. We are honored to be among the Fall 2022 recipients. Thank you, #RuthArts!
In addition to these two new grants, the Foundation has introduced the Ruth DeYoung Kohler (RDK) Legacy Fund, mirroring the support Ruth DeYoung Kohler made to arts institutions throughout her lifetime.
“These programs are at once forward-facing and anchored in Ruth DeYoung Kohler II’s inimitable legacy,” says Executive Director Karen Patterson. “We’re proud to honor Ruth’s lifelong commitment to the arts by continuing to fund the organizations she personally supported, and to develop new programs in her spirit of experimentation and community-building.”
This fall’s inaugural Core Grant is providing approximately $50,000 in funding to each of 84 nonprofit arts organizations—$4.5 million in total. The one-year program builds out the Foundation’s programmatic scope and geographic reach.
About the Ruth Foundation for the Arts
The Ruth Foundation for the Arts (Ruth Arts) is a new grantmaker based in the Midwest and dedicated to meeting the evolving needs and lived experiences of artists, communities, and arts organizations whose work is anchored by visual arts, performing arts, and arts education. Based in Milwaukee and national in scope, the Foundation reflects the culture and spirit of the Midwest, which long inspired its namesake and benefactor Ruth DeYoung Kohler II. Led by Executive Director Karen Patterson, as well as Program Directors Kim Nguyen and Rachel Reichert, the Foundation is a responsive and adventurous new force in the realm of arts philanthropy. Learn more about the Foundation here.
About Ruth Deyoung Kohler II
A lifetime supporter of the arts, Ruth DeYoung Kohler II (1941-2020) was deeply committed to artists and consequently, broke down hierarchies and categories within the art world to center artists, support communities, and engage with overlooked art forms. She made significant contributions to the arts across the U.S., including serving as Chairman and member of the Wisconsin Arts Board, acting as a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Organization panel member and past site evaluator, as founder of the Preservation Committee of Kohler Foundation, Inc., and Director of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center for more than forty years. Among the many awards and honors Ruth received are the Governor’s Award for the Arts, Wisconsin; Visionary Award, American Craft Museum; Visionary Leadership Award, Center for Intuitive and Outside Art; Visionary Lifetime Achievement Award, Museum of Art and Design; and honorary doctorates from various institutions of higher learning. She believed passionately that the arts reveal who we are as a people: past, present and future. She promoted equitable and inclusive access to the arts in her local community, her home state of Wisconsin, and on national and international levels.