Ruth Foundation for the Arts Announces 2025–2028 Core Grant Recipients
Awarding $25.35 Million to 169 Organizations in Expanded Three-Year Program
Milwaukee, WI, January 9, 2026– The Ruth Foundation for the Arts (Ruth Arts) is pleased to announce the 2025–2028 recipients of their Core Grants, now awarding $25.35 million in unrestricted funds over three years to 169 arts and cultural organizations across the country. The $8.45 million awarded annually nearly doubles the $4.5 million awarded to organizations in 2024. This cycle also marks a shift from a one-year grant to a multi-year program, with recipients receiving a total of $150,000 over three years.
Core Grants were introduced in 2022 as an application-based program open to previous recipients of an Artist Choice award. Designed to provide current grantees with opportunities for additional unrestricted support, Core applications are initially reviewed by a rotating group of readers who work across disciplines and regions. During each cycle, a relevant theme frames the grant questions meant to invite collaboration and reflection within the applicant organization.
“While the specific application questions change each cycle, the program always encourages deep self-reflection. The questions prompt each organization to examine and reconnect with their own unique values, histories, and the ‘core’ of who they are,” said Senior Grants Manager Zola Yi. “In turn, insights from the readers—esteemed peers from across the field—allow us as a Foundation to better understand the priorities of the arts ecosystem as a whole. Findings throughout the first three iterations of the program have shaped Core into what it looks like today: a multi-year structure for unrestricted grants, aiming to provide organizations with the stability and space for long-term planning.”
As a national program, Core provides a snapshot of the current cultural landscape each year, giving insights into the strategic, imaginative, and critical ways organizations are approaching their work today. Ranging from emergent organizations to longstanding institutions, each successful organization receives a grant of $150,000 over three years.
To see a full list of grantees, click here.
ABOUT THE RUTH FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
With an inventive approach to philanthropy and artistic support rooted in creativity, care, and experimentation, The Ruth Foundation for the Arts (Ruth Arts) launched in 2022 to support organizations in the visual and performing arts. Leading with its flagship Artist Choice program that is guided by an artist-driven nomination process, the foundation continues to honor the legacy of its founder Ruth DeYoung Kohler II (1941–2020) with ten distinct grant programs. Thanks to Ruth’s vision and generosity, Ruth Arts has been able to award over $55 million in grants to date. In 2024, Ruth Arts opened an art space in Milwaukee as an extension of its grantmaking. This year, Ruth Arts collaborates with Rivers Institute for Contemporary Art & Thought—an inaugural 2022 Artist Choice awardee—to present an extensive viewing of works by Bettina Grossman (1927–2021) while actively engaging with and revealing more of the artist’s archive. Original Order Order Original: The Art and Archives of Bettina runs through April 3, 2026.
###
Press inquiries may be directed to press@rutharts.org.