FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
Heath Wickline
650.234.4662
hwickline@hewlett.org

Eight organizations receive grants of $100,000 to $205,000 to address long-term recovery needs

MENLO PARK, Calif. (April 26, 2018)— The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced today that it has made eight grants totaling $1.2 million to arts organizations in Sonoma and Napa counties affected by last October’s devastating wildfires.

The eight arts organizations selected for these one-time fire recovery grants also receive funding from the Hewlett Foundation as part of its Performing Arts Program’s core funding commitments. Each grantee was affected by the fires in significant ways—from having their physical facilities damaged, to facing cancelled performances, lost ticket sales, and disruptions to fundraising efforts, as well as personal challenges suffered by their staff and community members. All of them also served their neighbors in a time of great need through benefit events, free tickets, and other events intended to help the community heal. The unrestricted funds from the Hewlett Foundation can be used by the grantee organizations in any way they choose, such as capital improvements to facilities, long-term strategic planning necessitated by the impact of the fires on their work, or other pressing needs they identify.

“Recovering from a disaster isn’t accomplished in a week or a month, and these unrestricted grants will support the ongoing recovery needs of these arts organizations and their communities,” said Emiko Ono, director of the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program. “Many of these organizations lost individual supporters who moved away or had staff members whose homes burned, and all of them will now have to chart a new course for the future. These funds are intended to help them do that, and ensure that the arts continue to be a thriving part of Napa and Sonoma counties.”

The eight organizations receiving grants are:

  • Arts Council Napa Valley
  • Cazadero Music Camp
  • Cinnabar Theater
  • Knights of Indulgence/ The Imaginists
  • Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
  • Santa Rosa Symphony
  • Sonoma County Economic Development Board/ Creative Sonoma
  • Sonoma State University/ Green Music Center

“These funds will allow us to replenish an existing grant fund that we had redirected toward fire relief,” said Kristen Madsen, director of grantee Creative Sonoma. “It will also allow us to staff our artists-in-schools program, to prepare for what our new collective future holds, and to breathe just a little easier.”

The Hewlett Foundation has supported the arts since its founding more than 50 years ago. Today, it is the largest private funder of the performing arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, making roughly $20 million in grants to more than 220 nonprofit arts organizations in 11 Bay Area counties each year.

About the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a nonpartisan, private charitable foundation that advances ideas and supports institutions to promote a better world. For more than 50 years, the foundation has supported efforts to advance education for all, preserve the environment, improve lives and livelihoods in developing countries, promote the health and economic well-being of women, support vibrant performing arts, strengthen Bay Area communities, and make the philanthropy sector more effective.

The foundation’s Performing Arts Program makes grants to sustain artistic expression and encourage public engagement in the arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, to give California students equal access to an education rich in the arts, and to provide necessary resources to help organizations and artists be effective in their work.

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