Investing in the Future of the Arts: Walder Foundation Supports 19 Performing Arts Chicago Organizations with $3M in Grants
CHICAGO, IL – November 10, 2025 – Walder Foundation provided nearly $3 million in grants to 19 performing arts organizations in the Chicago region in October 2025.
The grants are intended to help launch innovative ideas that respond to capacity-building needs affecting small and midsize performing arts organizations in Chicago.
Projects address the important areas of pay equity and arts worker care, changing business models, and leadership retention.
“These key areas are critical to help develop longevity and sustainability, rethink the way arts organizations have historically been operating, and build pathways to growth and investment in cultural workers within performing arts organizations," shares Ebony Chuukwu, Senior Program Officer, Performing Arts of Walder Foundation.
Research data and reports support a need for dedicated capacity-building funding for the performing arts sector in Chicago.
Southern Methodist University’s Data Arts’ study, “Navigating Recovery: Arts and Culture Financial and Operating Trends in Chicago,” broader post-pandemic research efforts like Enrich Chicago’s “Funding Equity: Crisis to Sustainability,” and community-led discussions by the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, outlined in “Vision of Chicago Theater 2030,” have underlined that performing arts organizations' methods and operational models must be rethought to achieve sustainable and long-lasting success.
“At Walder Foundation, we see place-based philanthropy as a powerful tool to catalyze sustainable, long-term change,” shares Elizabeth Walder, President and CEO of Walder Foundation. “This investment in Chicago’s performing arts sector will help increase its capacity to adapt and grow, highlighting that creativity and sustainability can go hand in hand.”
Grant recipients are as follows:
2nd Story
2nd Story is launching the next phase of their Rising Tide Project, an initiative focused on advancing arts worker care by reimagining the internal systems, structures, and culture of arts organizations through the lens of radical, strategic artist and community care.
Albany Park Theater Project
Albany Park Theater Project will offer senior and emerging leaders enhanced employee benefits such as mentorship opportunities, professional development, creative partnerships, and workplace practices such as transparent pay structures and paid sabbaticals.
Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra
Apollo’s Fire is looking to implement initiatives to expand their audiences and enhance their donor engagement efforts, leading to greater sustainability in their Chicago-based efforts.
Arts Alliance Illinois
Arts Alliance Illinois’ Public Funding Navigator Program plans to research and connect the Chicago arts and culture sector with innovative business models and revenue streams through the support of their Help Desk program.
Arts Work Fund
Through Arts Work Fund’s new Arts Capacity Grant Program, the organization aims to provide responsive grants to individual arts organizations—or collaborations among them—as they adopt or improve new operational or artistic practices.
Asian Improv aRts Midwest
Asian Improv aRts Midwest aims to assess and improve artistic professionalism and technical skills of their artists and also continue enhancing an archival database consistent with their cultural artform.
Cedille Records
Cedille Records seeks to create systems, efficiencies, and updates that will allow the organization to continue meeting the needs of artists, specifically through transitioning their distribution efforts from CD sales to an online distribution model.
Chicago Dancemakers Forum
Chicago Dancemakers Forum seeks to conduct extensive community engagement to explore potential new operational models for dance artists and organizations—including merger, restructuring, or shared operations—while continuing core programming.
Chicago Tap Theatre
Chicago Tap Theatre (CTT) is invested in ensuring equitable pay and meaningful benefits for their dancers and staff. They are currently looking to build on CTT's established model to create more economic opportunity, individual agency, and artistic growth opportunities.
Court Theatre
Court Theatre’s work with their Community Engagement Division creates tailored audience engagement initiatives to foster more diverse audiences from the South Side of Chicago. They plan to better utilize data analytics to evaluate their existing audience development strategy in an effort to inform their community engagement plan moving forward.
Definition Theatre Company
Definition Theatre Company seeks to strengthen its capacity for its "In Discovery" and “By Design” education programs. These programs are designed to immerse students in the world of theater, providing them with invaluable hands-on experience and mentorship from industry professionals.
Experimental Sound Studio
Experimental Sound Studio has designed a pilot program to give Chicago-area musicians and sound artists free access to studio sessions. This program investigates the individual and overall economic impact of disrupting the typical music industry ecosystem at a critical juncture in the artistic process.
Haymarket Opera Company
Haymarket Opera Company seeks to enhance its sustainability by improving employee retention. Building on prior efforts, they seek to support health and wellness benefits, retirement plans, paid time off, and expanded professional development.
Hyde Park Jazz Festival
Hyde Park Jazz Festival is looking to expand its operational capacity and enhance their fundraising and communication strategies by adding an executive director role to the organization.
Lawyers for the Creative Arts
Lawyers for the Creative Arts’ investment in personnel costs associated with the delivery of their various programs helps them continue to marshal the resources of the city’s legal community in service of the arts.
Mandala South Asian Performing Arts
Mandala South Asian Performing Arts (MSAPA) offers corporate art workshops to integrate South Asian visual and performing arts into dynamic coursework, helping corporate professionals build essential soft skills and engage in social-emotional learning. Through the workshops, MSAPA strives to create a steady earned income stream, broaden its audience and impact, and provide professional opportunities for South Asian artists in the workplace.
New Music USA
New Music USA’s Chicago-based New Music Inc cohort helps small-budget, artist-led new music groups and organizations generate new ideas, strategies, and collaborations at pivotal stages in the group or collective’s development.
Teatro Vista
Teatro Vista is investing in its Artistic Collective Model and cross-media collaborations. These initiatives foster a new business model that increases brand visibility and strengthens community awareness of their artists. Through these programs, underrepresented artists may gain resources, mentorship, and opportunities to excel in theater, TV, film, and digital media.
TimeLine Theatre Company
TimeLine is piloting the execution of its “Roadmap to Sustainable Impact,” a new strategic plan created to address the organization's growing need for new models of meaningful and sustained community engagement work as they prepare to enter their new home in the spring of 2026.
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About Walder Foundation
Walder Foundation was established by Joseph and Elizabeth Walder to address critical issues impacting our world. The Foundation’s five areas of focus—science innovation, environmental sustainability, the performing arts, migration and immigrant communities, and Jewish life—are an extension of the Walders’ lifelong passions, interests, and their personal and professional experiences.
Walder Foundation’s support of performing artists and arts organizations aims to sustain careers and cultural groups so artists can continue to create and perform for the betterment of our communities.
Media Contact – Walder Foundation:
Elizabeth Kix, MPH, APR
Director of Communications
Walder Foundation
ekix@walderfoundation.org
847-616-5968
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