SARAH ARISON

Sarah Arison is President of the Arison Arts Foundation, a private grant-making organization that supports emerging artists and the institutions that foster them. She was immersed in the arts from a young age by her grandparents, philanthropists Ted and Lin Arison, who founded Arison Arts Foundation, the National YoungArts Foundation and the New World Symphony, among their many philanthropic endeavors.

Arison is Chair of the Board of the National YoungArts Foundation, where she develops strategic partnerships to provide aspiring talent with presentation and mentorship opportunities. Arison is Vice-Chair of the board of MoMA PS1; a trustee of MoMA and a member of the Committee on Education; a trustee of American Ballet Theatre and Chair of the Education Committee; a trustee of Lincoln Center; a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum and Chair of the Education Committee; a trustee of New World Center; a member of the Board of Directors of Americans for the Arts; and a trustee of the Americas Foundation of the Serpentine Galleries.

In 2015, Arison produced her first feature film, Desert Dancer. She co-produced the documentary The First Monday in May and The Price of Everything, which was acquired by HBO at the Sundance Film Festival.

Arison earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business and French with a minor in Art History from Emory University.

BRIDGITT EVANS

Bridgitt Evans cofounded VIA Art Fund in 2013 and currently serves as Chairman of the Board and President with responsibility for the organization’s strategic and operational business plan. Evans is an avid contemporary art collector and philanthropist with significant business and non-profit management expertise.

Previously, Evans worked for Rouse & Associates (now Liberty Property Trust), a national developer of office and industrial properties, and AEW Capital, a real estate investment firm where Evans was responsible for direct investing and portfolio management on behalf of the firm’s institutional investors. Evans has held numerous leadership positions on non-profit boards and currently serves on the Executive Committee of The Telluride Foundation; as Trustee and Chair of the Governance Committee of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and as a member of Harvard Business School’s Board of Dean’s Advisors.

Evans received a BS in Finance from Miami University and an MBA from Harvard University.

DEANA HAGGAG

Deana Haggag is the President & CEO of United States Artists, a national arts funding organization based in Chicago, IL. Before joining USA in February 2017, she was the Executive Director of The Contemporary, a nomadic and non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, MD, for four years. 

In addition to her leadership roles, Haggag lectures extensively, consults on various art initiatives, contributes to cultural publications, and has taught at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Towson University. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Artistic Director's Council of Prospect.5, and the Advisory Council of Recess. 

Haggag received her MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA from Rutgers University in Art History and Philosophy.

PATTON HINDLE

Patton Hindle is the Senior Director of Arts at Kickstarter, where she oversees the Arts and Performance Arts team whose specialists work closely with visual and performing artists, arts organizations, museums, and cultural institutions around the world to help them realize creative and ambitious ideas. Hindle was previously the co-founder of Chinatown gallery yours mine & ours and the Director of Gallery and Institutional Partnerships at Artspace.

She is a co-author of the second edition of “How to Start and Run a Commercial Art Gallery” and is a 2019 Catherine Hannah Behrend Fellow at 92Y Women inPower in New York.

Hindle was raised in London and attended university in Boston.

Alberto Ibargüen

Alberto Ibargüen is president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. He is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. During his tenure, The Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes and El Nuevo Herald won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in Spanish language journalism. For his work to protect journalists in Latin America, he received a Maria Moors Cabot citation from Columbia University.

Ibargüen graduated from Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He served in the Peace Corps in Venezuela’s Amazon Territory and in Colombia. He practiced law until joining the Hartford Courant and Newsday. Ibargüen also served on the board of directors of PepsiCo, American Airlines, AOL and Norwegian Cruise Lines.

He is the former board chair of PBS, the Newseum and the World Wide Web Foundation. He has served on the boards of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Wesleyan University, Smith College, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

He holds honorary degrees from several schools, including Wesleyan and George Washington Universities, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

EDDIE TORRES

Edwin Torres joined Grantmakers in the Arts as President & CEO in October 2017. He most recently served as deputy commissioner of cultural affairs for New York City. Prior to joining the New York City government, he was a program officer with The Rockefeller Foundation. He has also served on the arts and culture team at The Ford Foundation as well as on the staff of the Bronx Council on the Arts and Parsons the New School for Design.

Torres holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Hunter College and a Master of Science in Management from The New School.

sean mcmanus

Sean is the co-founder of M+D and the Arts Funders Forum (AFF), and regularly advises companies in the areas of strategic communications, conferences, digital media and thought leadership. He was the original managing director of QuartzLive, the conferences and live events division of Quartz and director of programs at The Economist, leading content development for Economist Events in the Americas, including sponsored content and related digital media. Previously, he was a magazine editor; his work has appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, Worth and Details. Sean has a master’s degree in US history and was a teaching assistant for Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

FINANCIAL TIMES

Where is the money for culture in the US?

HANK WILLIS THOMAS

Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media and popular culture. His work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Brooklyn Museum; the High Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), and For Freedoms, an artist-run initiative for art and civic engagement. In 2017, For Freedoms was awarded the ICP Infinity Award for New Media and Online Platform.

Thomas is also a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize, the Soros Equality Fellowship, and is a member of the New York City Public Design Commission.

charlotte cramer wagner

Charlotte Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Wagner Foundation, a Boston-based foundation whose mission is to build just and robust community throughout the world.  Honoring the potential in all people, the foundation looks to support individuals in building the skills necessary to be agents of change in their own lives and active members of their communities. Wagner Foundation invests in the following focus areas: improving health equity, increasing economic mobility, expanding institutional fairness, and striving for cultural transformation. The foundation works across these disciplines to develop systematic solutions to the word’s most pressing problems.

Charlotte serves on the Boards of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, VIA Art Fund, and Partners In Health. She also serves on the Tate North American Acquisitions Committee. Prior to her philanthropic focus, Charlotte held positions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Fidelity Investments and Tribune Media Services. Charlotte has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, and A.B. from the University of Michigan. Charlotte resides in Cambridge, MA with her husband Herbert S. Wagner III and their three children.

melissa cowley wolf

Melissa is the director of the Arts Funders Forum (AFF) and founder of MCW Projects LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to expanding the next generation of cultural philanthropists, advocates and audiences. She advises organizations on philanthropic strategies to increase relevancy and revenue streams; partners with the financial sector and their clients to highlight the immense and unique impact achievable in the culture sector; and collaborates across industries to advocate for increased philanthropic support of the arts.

Melissa has twenty years of experience in philanthropy and programming for cultural institutions across the United States. In 2019, she lived in Africa and Europe studying the art and philanthropic sectors in eight countries. 

THE ART NEWSPAPER

What will cultural philanthropy look like in the 21st century? A new forum aims to find out