Artist Trust is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that supports working artists of all disciplines in Washington State. We fuel our funding and other programs for artists through fundraising, partnership, and community engagement. Recognized as a national model for direct funding and professional development for working artists, we have invested over $15 million in individual artists since our founding in 1986. We view our mission through a lens of racial and geographic equity and are actively working to become an anti-racist organization and build a leaderful workplace.
In 2021, a cohort of six Washington State artists representing multiple disciplines, backgrounds, and geographies were convened to re-envision Artist Trust’s values with explicit racial equity and anti-racist language. This process was led by AV Consulting as part of Artist Trust’s Racial Equity Audit process as recommended by our community. Stay tuned for a full report on the outcomes of the audit later this summer.
Thank you to our Racial Equity Artist Cohort: Jiemei Lin, Paige Pettibon, Carl Richardson, Abel Rocha, Gilda Sheppard, and Chris E. Vargas.
We see our new values as aspirational. We are already implementing them in our processes and will use them as a guiding tool for policy creation and program development. We are fortunate to be a part of a community that pushes us to be better and are excited to grow with you by our side.