Museum Receives MPSJ Grant

For over three decades, RoAnn Costin has been working in the financial services and investments industries. Leading Wilderness Point Investments as managing director, RoAnn Costin splits her time between her professional and volunteer responsibilities on nonprofit boards. She serves on the board of trustees for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, one of four inaugural recipients of a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program.

In September 2021, four grants from the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program marked the beginning of its Museum Partnerships for Social Justice initiative (MPSJ). This initiative assists and expands a group of organizations dedicated to anti-racist practices in art-centered projects. To this end, it supports art museums as they explore and develop anti-racist project models that function across the field.

Alongside the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, an organization sharing the beauty of the arts and promoting the pursuit of knowledge, MPSJ awarded grants to the Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro, the Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Memphis-Brooks Museum of Art. For 18 months, pairs of grantee museums plan on working closely in the development of anti-racist projects. The Weatherspoon Art Museum and Mississippi Museum of Art are partners, while the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum partners with the Memphis-Brooks Museum of Art.