In Portland, the Miller Foundation makes an extraordinary investment in the arts.
The Miller Foundation is making an extraordinary $13.7 million investment in Oregon arts, and inviting others to join them.
In a call-to-action on their website, Executive Director of the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation and Peter Koehler, Jr., President of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, described the challenges that arts organizations in Portland are facing, which led them to make an extraordinary $13.7M investment in Oregon arts:
…as leaders of one of Oregon’s largest arts and education foundations, we have a backstage pass to see a different side of the story: Many of our most beloved and longstanding arts institutions — big and small — are struggling to survive. They need our help now more than ever.
Audiences are slow to return. Costs are rising. Pandemic relief funding is ending. And support from other private and public sources is increasingly uncertain.
Arts organizations are at the edge of a financial cliff and need a bridge to stable ground. We can and must do more to help them get there.
They also challenged others to join them in supporting the arts:
Artists and arts groups also foster a community-wide sense of creativity, exploration and introspection that promotes the region’s cultural resilience and opportunity. That, too, is key in the recovery and revival of our city and state, as we seek to center racial equity and social justice.
Now is the time for both public and private organizations to show up for the arts…it is essential to keep city support stable for artists and arts organizations. That means funding them directly and without delay as the city establishes a new system for distributing city arts funding.
