The Milwaukee-based Ruth Foundation for the Arts, established with a $440 million endowment from the late Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, has announced its first grants and its plan to award $17 million annually, ARTnews reports. 

Funded through the fortune of the heiress of the Kohler manufacturing company, who worked for decades as director of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the foundation awarded unrestricted grants totaling $1.25 million to 78 arts nonprofits across the United States in increments of $10,000, $20,000, and $50,000, depending on the recipient’s operating budget. Grantees include the Laundromat Project in Brooklyn, New York; Project Row Houses in Houston; Creative Growth in Oakland, California; and the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine.

In addition to organizations that DeYoung Kohler had previously supported, a significant share of the 78 grantees were selected through a nomination process that involved nearly 50 artists. For its first few years, the foundation will award grants through a similar process, and the pool will include the current awardees as well as the other organizations nominated this year but not selected for a grant.

“We will try to be responsive and nimble as we build,” Karen Patterson, the foundation’s inaugural director, told ARTnews. “We want to distribute funds to those who need it. This is about impact and acknowledging the work that people are doing, especially now.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Thampapon)