Posted on August 17, 2010

Piper Trust Announces $1.2 Million in Arts Grants

The Phoenix-based Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust has announced eleven grants totaling $1.2 million through its Arts Restructuring and Transformation Fund.

The one-time initiative was created to redirect funds left over after the April wind-down of the Metro Phoenix Partnership for Arts and Culture (MPAC). Piper and the Flinn Foundation, the two major funders of MPAC, agreed to designate the remaining MPAC funds for the Flinn-Piper Strengthening the Arts Initiative earlier this year.

The grants will support the development of new business models, streamlining of internal processes, and creation of strategic alliances to help grantees increase their revenues and/or reduce costs. Grants were awarded to the Arizona Opera, Arizona Theatre Company with Actors Theatre of Phoenix, Ballet Arizona, the Chandler Cultural Center, Childsplay, the Desert Botanical Garden, the Heard Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum, the Phoenix Conservatory of Music, the Phoenix Symphony, and Theater Works.

"Arts and culture organizations have received body blows from the economic downturn," said Piper president and CEO Judy Jolley Mohraz. "Piper trustees wanted to support arts organizations as they change the way they do business now and well into the future."

For more information about the grantees, visit the Piper Trust Web site.