{"id":1269,"date":"2026-09-09T11:24:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2026-09-09T11:24:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T16:24:57","slug":"jerome-foundation-works-to-close-the-hope-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/2026\/09\/jerome-foundation-works-to-close-the-hope-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerome Foundation works to close the Hope Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News recently hit dozens of organizations supported by the Jerome Foundation<\/a> that the board of directors decided to make additional, unrestricted grants to help support them – financially as well as psychically – as they navigate an era of unprecedented changes in funding, in audience behavior, and in policy changes that undermine values that are core to mission. Eighty Jerome grantees will receive $40,000 in unrestricted support; those who operate arts spaces will receive $80,000. This amounts to a total of $12 million in spending for arts organizations in 2026: no grantees were expecting a fresh influx of cash. A press release<\/a> on the Jerome website gives more detail on what the foundation calls its Seeding Innovation Fund. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming from one of the most prominent and consistent arts funders in the United States, this is not just good news in terms of the money itself, but also in terms of the example it quickly sets for others to move toward similar action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor Savage, president and CEO of the foundation, gave me a call to let me know about this astonishing decision, and to tell me that Jerome now joins other funders nationally who have signed the pledge to “Level Up<\/a>” to meet the challenges organizations are facing today. Signatories agree to significantly increase their giving (up to 8%, instead of the 5% required by tax law) for at least two fiscal years; move money quickly, equitably, and flexibly; and share their 990 tax returns to document their action. Finally, these grantmakers are asked to use their voice to persuade others to do the same. (Earlier this year, I wrote a longer piece about foundation spending for Twin Cities Business Magazine, which you can read here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jerome now joins the current group of 52 grantmakers who have signed the Level Up pledge and made some noise about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As background, endowed foundations are required to spend at least 5% of their assets each year on grants and related programmatic expense. Many foundations calculate this amount to the dollar. Their rationale is that, over a long period of time (decades), the 5% rule preserves their “spending power” for many generations. (In fact, some have argued that 5% is too high.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But over the past several years, outsized market gains mean that foundations’ assets have grown significantly, as have the gaps and pains that arts organizations are facing. “We count on arts organizations to take creative risks and to innovate, but that takes money,” Savage said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We talked with our investment managers about this, and asked them to model the short and long-term impact of making the choice to spend more,” Savage told me. “They applauded our aims and helped show us how to make it work.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also quoted from a recent piece in Stanford Social Innovation Review, titled We Need to Close the Hope Gap<\/a>, in which authors Camilla Griffiths, Trevor Smith, Christina Pao, and Justin Morgan describe ways to document, quantify, and change the feeling of deep discouragement that keeps people and organizations from addressing critical problems. “Hope is contagious when it becomes tangible, so we must design to make progress visible and celebrate incremental wins as stepping-stones,” say the authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jerome board<\/a>, comprised of artists, has clearly demonstrated how they can use the tools at hand to make such progress. They offer this very sense of hope that the cultural sector needs. Bravo to them and to those who are encouraged to action at a time when it is so sorely needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jerome Foundation announces an unprecedented increase in grantmaking this year, helping their grantees persevere and innovate in challenging times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,48,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-grantmaking","category-innovation","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}