ArtPlace America Executive Director Jamie L. Bennett announced today ArtPlace has received commitments of $28 million to support creative placemaking throughout 2014 and beyond. Mr. Bennett was delighted to also announce that in addition to renewed support, this total includes a grant from the Barr Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, which is the newest member of ArtPlace’s collaboration.

This brings the total of ArtPlace’s current foundation partners to 14, which includes the Barr Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, William Penn Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and two anonymous donors.

Mr. Bennett said, “Having these distinguished foundation partners is a testament to the powerful momentum and undeniable impact of creative placemaking in this country. We are thrilled to welcome the Barr Foundation to this coalition. Their generous support enables ArtPlace America to reaffirm its commitment to fundamentally change a diversity of communities through the arts in all its manifestations and variations.”

The funding for ArtPlace America provides grants to projects that use the arts to shape the social, physical, and economic futures of communities and to supporting this growing field of practice in all fifty states and U.S. territories. Projects range from the Glass House Collective introducing creative interventions to revitalize a commercial district in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to the Wormfarm Institute’s Farm/Art Dtour stimulating collaborations among artists and the food and farming communities at the Fermentation Fest in Sauk County, Wisconsin, to the reactivation of Historic Higo Garden Hub through the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, Washington.

Several ArtPlace America supporters have deep commitments to their local and regional communities and thus have provided enhanced funding for them, including urban, suburban, and rural areas in Alaska, California, and Minnesota and rural and non-metropolitan communities in Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. Targeted cities include Akron, Ohio; Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, Massachusetts; Charlotte, North Carolina; Detroit, Michigan; Macon, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; San Jose, California; and St. Paul, Minnesota. Additionally, several funders are especially interested in ensuring the participation and representation of folk and traditional arts, Native American arts, and the performing arts in creative placemaking.