About Us

What is the Creative Work Fund?

The Creative Work Fund invites artists and nonprofit organizations to create new art works through collaborations. It celebrates the role of artists as problem solvers and the making of art as a profound contribution to intellectual inquiry and to the strengthening of communities. The Fund gives equal consideration to:

• Collaborations between artists and arts organizations

• Collaborations between artists and non-arts community organizations (youth, human services, educational, environmental, among others)

Four principles guide the Fund:

• Artists’ creativity merits philanthropic support

• Individual creativity is the source of cultural richness and diversity

• The arts can be a powerful vehicle for problem solving and community renewal

• Collaborative efforts among artists, organizations, and their constituents can generate a productive exchange of ideas and bring the arts to new audiences

Creative Work Fund History

Responding to several years of declining support for artists and new art works, The Columbia Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Miriam and Peter Haas Fund, and Walter and Elise Haas Fund launched the Creative Work Fund in September 1994.  Since its inception, the Fund has awarded $5.9 million in grants for collaborations between artists and organizations to create new art works.Currently, the Creative Work Fund is a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by generous grants from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation.The Fund is slowly expanding its geographic range to include artists and organizations in Marin, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus in the 2008-09 applicant pool.  In 2009, it will award approximately $600,000 in grants to nonprofit organizations and collaborating media or traditional artists.Grants in both categories will range from $10,000 to $40,000 and will be awarded by September 2009.  Projects are expected to be completed within two years, but those of longer duration will be considered.See Apply for a Grant for explicit instructions.

Recent Creative Work Fund Grant Recipients

On June 15, 2007, The Creative Work Fund announced 15 grants totaling $472,000 for visual and traditional artists creating new works through collaborations with nonprofit organizations.  Grants were recommended to the Creative Work Fund by prestigious committees of panelists.The collaborations between Creative Work Fund artists and their choice of Bay Area nonprofits will produce innovative and enlightening works–such as linens and scrubs designed by hospital residents; a mobile observation beehive raising awareness about the plight of the honeybee; spectacular quilts conveying important health messages; an array of Chinese musicians exploring regional distinctions and harmony in Chinese opera music; and much more.The projects feature creative partnerships with a range of local arts and cultural organizations as well as with a worker's center, an environmental and arts education program, a public library, a parks and recreation department, and an African American health initiative. A number of the 2007 projects focus on linking residents to valuable features of their neighborhoods, including a transformed alley in the Tenderloin, a new branch library in San Francisco's Portola neighborhood, the bees in an orchard, and four small parks in downtown Oakland.   The Creative Work Fund's 2007 visual arts awardees and their collaborators are: 

• Kate Connell and Oscar Melara and the San Francisco Public Library (San Francisco)

• Sergio De La Torre (Oakland) and the San Francisco Art Institute (San Francisco)

• Helena Keeffe and the Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center (San Francisco)

• Rob Keller (Napa) and Nimbus Arts (St. Helena)

• Sue Mark and Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation (Oakland)

• Donna Keiko Ozawa (Berkeley) and Kearny Street Workshop (San Francisco)

• Rigo '23 and the Luggage Store/509 Cultural Center (San Francisco).

The Creative Work Fund's 2007 traditional arts awardees and their collaborators are:

• Ubirajara Almeida (Richmond), CK Ladzkepo (Oakland), and the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts (Richmond)

• Charya Burt (Windsor) and Asian American Dance Performances (San Francisco)

• Marion Coleman (Castro Valley) and Bay Area Black United Fund (Oakland)

• Martina Jimenez and Centro Legal de la Raza (Oakland)

• Mellie Lopez (Berkeley) and Mindanao Lilang-Lilang (San Francisco)

• Patrick Makuakāne and World Arts West (San Francisco)

• Melody Takata and Asian Improv aRts (San Francisco)

• Wang Wei (Oakland) and the San Francisco Gu Zheng Music Society. 

Grants review panelists in the visual arts were:

• Deborah Cullen, Director of Curatorial Programs at El Museo del Barrio in New York

• René de Guzman, Director of Visual Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco

• Paul Ha, Director of the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis

• Michael Schwager, Curator of the di Rosa Preserve: Art & Nature in Napa

• Wendy Watriss, Artistic Director and Co-founder of FotoFest in Houston

• Artist Taraneh Hemami served as an advisor to the process.

Grants review panelists in the traditional arts were:

• Professor and curator Marsha MacDowell, Ph.D., of Michigan State University and the Michigan State University Museum

• Daniel Sheehy, Ph.D., Director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in Washington D.C.

• Deborah Wong, Ph.D., Professor of Music at the University of California, Riverside.

• Amanda Almonte, former Director of Ensambles Ballet Folklorico; Kate Eilertsen, executive director of the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco; and folklorist Francesca McCrossan served as advisors to the traditional arts process.

For brief descriptions of funded projects, see Creative Work Fund Recipients 1994-2007.