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. Artists are encouraged to collaborate with nonprofit organizations of all kinds.

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 $7.4 million in grants for collaborations between artists and organizations to create new art works.

More recently, the Creative Work Fund has been 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.

During 2010, The Creative Work Fund is reapplying to its funders and by December will know about future funding levels, deadlines, and project dates.

Likely, in 2011-2013, it will continue to invite letters of inquiry and applications from artists and nonprofit organizations in the following 14 counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Stanislaus.

Also likely, it will invite proposals for projects featuring literary artists or traditional artists. Grants in both categories will range from $10,000 to $40,000.

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

In July, 2009, the Creative Work Fund announced $670,000 in grants for 17 projects featuring media or traditional artists

According to the Fund’s director, Frances Phillips, these grants, “point to the extraordinary qualities of the Bay Area’s cultural scene, where artists are working at the cutting edge of new technology and also immersing themselves deeply in the past to excavate the Punjabi-Mexican community of the Central Valley or to do research and create a traditional Ohlone presentation basket—something no Rumsien Ohlone artist has done in 300 years.”

Projects feature partnerships with a range of nonprofit organizations that extend geographically from Russian Riverkeeper in Healdsburg to Big Sur Land Trust in Carmel. They also feature connections between artists and organizations working with prisoners on death row, members of the region’s Islamic community, and children of divorcing parents as well as artists’ partnerships with museums, galleries, and dance and music organizations.

The Creative Work Fund’s 2009 Media Arts awardees and their collaborators are:

Sam Ball (San Francisco) and Traveling Jewish Theatre (San Francisco)
Ellen Bruno (San Francisco) and Kids’ Turn (San Francisco)
Laurie Coyle (San Francisco) and Chicana/Latina Foundation (Burlingame)
Ana Teresa Fernandez (San Francisco) and Galeria de la Raza (San Francisco)
Ken Goldberg (Mill Valley) and Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco)
Dee Hibbert-Jones (San Francisco) and Community Resource Initiative (San Francisco)
Hugh Livingston (Oakland) and Russian Riverkeeper (Healdsburg)
Raeshma Razvi (Oakland) and Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (Oakland)

The Creative Work Fund’s 2009 Traditional Arts awardees and their collaborators are:

Wan-Chao Chang (Fremont) and Gadung Kasturi Balinese Dance and Music (Richmond)
Antonia Minnecola (San Anselmo) and Afsaneh Art & Culture Society (Woodacre)
Maria Poletaeva (El Cerrito) and Kitka, Inc. (Oakland)
Tashi Sharzur (Techung) (San Mateo) and Door Dog Music Productions (San Francisco)
Sali Rumen Shopov (Berkeley) and Voice of Roma (Sebastopol)
Joti Singh (San Francisco) and Ensambles Ballet Folklorico de San Francisco (San Francisco)
Jay van Arsdale (Oakland) and Friends of the Japanese Garden (Alameda)
Linda Yamane (Seaside) and Big Sur Land Trust (Carmel)