Environment and Culture Partners (ECP), a non-profit organisation dedicated to strengthening and broadening the environmental leadership of the cultural sector, is celebrating the extension of the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative (FCI).
Developed and implemented in partnership with RMI and Environment & Culture Partners, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s Frankenthaler Climate Initiative is the largest private national grant-making program of its kind supporting institutions focused on visual arts and arts education. So far, the scheme has conferred over $10.8 million to support 175 energy efficiency and clean energy projects at almost 150 art organisations across the US.
Now, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation has announced that $2.7 million will be awarded to 48 art museums and schools through the third cycle of the FCI. In addition, it will increase funding for the FCI from $10 million to a total of $15 million and will extend the programme to include at least two additional cycles in 2024 and 2025.
2023 beneficiaries
The success and expansion of the initiative since its inception in 2021 have included the tripling of the Foundation’s initial $5 million commitment and the expansion of its applicant parameters to include museums, noncollecting visual arts organisations, and art schools. This latest extension builds on those achievements and gains.
The programme offers grants ranging from scoping and technical assistance grants that evaluate opportunities and strategies for energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions to implementation grants that provide partial and seed funding for fully specified projects. The goal of the programme is to support nonprofit organisations of all sizes as they work to reduce their impact on the environment.
The beneficiaries from the 2023 cycle represent a wide range of visual arts organisations. This includes art schools and university museums like the Pratt Institute, New York, and the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin. It also includes regional museums and specialized institutions such as the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, the New Orleans Museum of Art, Lousiana, and The Noguchi Museum, New York.
Arts nonprofits such as SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Wassaic Project, New York, also feature, as well as institutions with national and international reach, like the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Illinois, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (pictured, top), among others.
Widening the initiative
Through workshops and public programmes, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation continues to spread awareness about the crucial relevance of sustainable operations and practises in the arts and the beneficial effects that these may have. It will mount a unique public programme on Friday 22 September, during Climate Week NYC, and details will be released in the upcoming weeks.
“We are thrilled by the continued interest the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative has received from visual arts institutions who want to fight climate change, but often don’t have the means,” says Lise Motherwell, director and Board chair of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. “These organizations have inspired us with their ingenuity and commitment to lower their carbon footprints.
“We decided to extend our funding and FCI’s grantmaking cycle, so that others can participate in this clean energy initiative.”
Clifford Ross, president of the Board of Directors, adds: “Leadership grants have become a significant part of the Foundation’s work extending Helen Frankenthaler’s legacy. And nothing is more important than climate reform.”
Elizabeth Smith, executive director of the Foundation, says: “At a time when we are all feeling the impact of extreme climate change, it is especially gratifying to expand the urgent work of the Frankenthaler Climate Initiative.”
Supporting a broad spectrum of climate projects
“As we approach the middle of this pivotal decade for climate action, we are seeing the transformative power of cultural institutions in improving energy efficiency and embracing clean energy solutions,” comments Jon Creyts, CEO of RMI.
“While cultural institutions still need substantial support for their technical and capital projects, the good news is that energy efficiency measures often bring both financial benefits and emission reductions to these institutions. We are thrilled about the selection of year three grantees and the positive impact they will have.”
Sarah Sutton, CEO of Environment & Culture Partners, adds: “2023 saw the largest number and most sophisticated project proposals to date, as the visual arts field continues to grow in its capacity to affect positive change on climate.
“FCI’s third-year grants support a broad spectrum of climate projects that will yield quantitative and qualitative data critical to institutional benchmarking and to advancing work addressing climate change. The increased appetite for pursuing energy-efficient practices across the cultural sector is a clear indicator that the essential changes being made by FCI grantees is moving the needle in favor of clean energy and climate-smart choices.”
All FCI grant recipients track and report their energy consumption and greenhouse gas reduction using Energy Star Portfolio Manager, helping to build an industry-standard benchmark for measuring and tracking building energy use.
The application process for the next grant-making cycle is expected to open in Spring 2024.
Earlier this year, Environment and Culture Partners announced the findings of the Carbon Inventory Project 2023. This was a collective effort from US museums to establish the US cultural sector’s first carbon benchmark from energy use.
