The Annenberg Foundation Arts Grants

The Annenberg Foundation Arts Grants is sponsored by The Annenberg Foundation. The Annenberg Foundation supports arts organizations in Southern California through grants that promote creative expression and community engagement.

The Annenberg Foundation — a family foundation — supports people working to make their communities more equitable. innovative. resilient.

Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg makes a significant donation to the University of Pennsylvania to establish the Annenberg School for Communication. The gift launches what will become a leading center for the study of media and society.

USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg creates the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. The school expands his vision for communication education to the West Coast.

Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg establishes the Annenberg Foundation. The family foundation becomes an enduring vehicle for the Annenbergs' philanthropy across education, the arts, and civic life.

To meet the needs of historically Black colleges and universities, the Annenberg Foundation makes a $50 million challenge gift to support UNCF (formerly known as the United Negro College Fund). The commitment helps to strengthen institutions that serve generations of students. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Ambassador Walter H.

Annenberg pledges the largest single donation of art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. His collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces is valued at more than $1 billion at the time. Ambassador Walter H.

Annenberg announces a $500 million challenge grant to support education reform in school districts throughout the United States. The funds reach 24,000 public schools, helping more than 1. 5 million students and 80,000 teachers.

The challenge grant was met and exceeded, with over 1,600 businesses, foundations, colleges, universities, and individuals giving $600 million. The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg and his wife, Leonore, establish a charitable trust to preserve their Rancho Mirage, California, winter home.

Today, A. Quincy Jones’ architectural masterpiece serves as both a retreat for world leaders to address key issues and an enriching space for the public to explore its history, beauty, and cultural significance. Charles Annenberg Weingarten launches explore.

org, the world’s leading live nature camera network that promotes lifelong learning, connections to animals and nature, and championing the selfless acts of others. The growing library at explore. org features 250-plus original documentary films and 30,000 photographs from around the world.

Lauren Bon founds Metabolic Studio, an interdisciplinary art and research hub that uses art interventions and innovative projects to explore critical social and environmental issues through a practice of reparation. The Studio’s work centers on water, land use, energy, and the reimagining of relationships among humans, non-humans, and living systems.

Bridging art, science, and activism, Metabolic Studio offers creative solutions and alternative perspectives on urgent environmental and civic challenges. GRoW @ Annenberg Foundation Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, while living in Paris, supports a wide range of organizations including Médicins du Monde, the American Library in Paris, and the Louvre.

It is through this work that he develops what becomes his signature initiative, GRoW @ Annenberg Foundation. GRoW supports innovative projects and organizations that address social and cultural issues, meet urgent community needs, and offer inspiration and collaboration — all with the goal of improving the quality of life in communities around the world.

Lauren Bon creates Not A Cornfield , a transformational land artwork that turns a 32-acre abandoned rail yard in the historic core of Los Angeles into a living field of corn for one agricultural cycle.

Located on land that would become Los Angeles State Historic Park, the project revives an industrial brownfield, bringing the value of earth, seed, water, and process to public consciousness while creating the possibility for shared stewardship of the site.

Not A Cornfield becomes the seedbed for Lauren’s Metabolic Studio practice: self-sustaining and self-diversifying systems of exchange that use living systems, infrastructure, and civic imagination to regenerate the life web. Annenberg Foundation Headquarters Moves to Los Angeles The Annenberg Foundation relocates its Philadelphia-area headquarters to Los Angeles.

As enshrined in the organization's trust per the founder's wishes, the Foundation continues under family stewardship with directors Wallis Annenberg, Lauren Bon, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, and Charles Annenberg Weingarten. Annenberg Community Beach House The Annenberg Foundation, at Wallis Annenberg's direction, partners with the City of Santa Monica to open a five-acre beachfront destination to the public.

The storied oceanfront estate — built in the 1920s by William Randolph Hearst — is restored and reimagined as a unique community recreational center accessible to all, with no membership required.

Annenberg Space for Photography Guided by the visions of Wallis Annenberg and late Annenberg Foundation Executive Director Leonard Aube, the Annenberg Foundation unveils Los Angeles' first cultural destination dedicated exclusively to photography. Before closing in 2020, the venue hosted hundreds of photographers for its Iris Nights lecture series and welcomed more than 1 million visitors free of charge.

Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio create Strawberry Flag , a deployable aquaponic strawberry farm in the shape of the American flag at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration campus. The project uses salvaged strawberry plants, reclaimed water, bicycle power, and a team of veterans — working through the VA’s Compensated Work Therapy program — to create a living artwork and social practice engagement.

As a “device of wonder,” Strawberry Flag transforms an underused site into a place of healing, occupational training, creative programming, and community exchange — giving rise to the Strawberry Gazette , the Veterans Print Studio, and new forms of veteran-led cultural participation. The work helps to catalyze a broader recognition of the West L. A.

campus as a home for veterans, not only a hospital, and contributes to the momentum that led the U.S. government to convert long-abandoned buildings on the site into long-overdue veteran housing. Charles Annenberg Weingarten establishes Dog Bless You, which becomes an explore. org initiative that showcases the bond between humans and animals as a resource for companionship and psychological support.

Dog Bless You helps to fund the deployment of search and rescue dogs in the aftermath of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, bringing widespread attention to the life-saving impact of working dogs. Since its launch, Dog Bless You has funded the training of hundreds of service dogs, guide dogs, search and rescue dogs, and other working canines.

Through his GRoW @ Annenberg Foundation, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten makes a transformative gift to Institut Curie to fund research for pediatric neuroblastoma. In 2024, France’s leading cancer research center presents Gregory with the Prix Marie Curie des Grands Donateurs (Marie Curie Major Benefactor award) for his years of commitment and support.

Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio’s ongoing work Bending the River is a first-of-its-kind infrastructural artwork and water reclamation project that reimagines the relationship between Los Angeles and the river that brought it into existence. Using L. A.'

s first private water right, the project redirects a portion of L. A. River water through a network of pipes, lifts and cleanses it through a native wetland treatment system, and distributes regenerated water to Los Angeles State Historic Park and more than 50 acres of land in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles.

As both a sculptural work and a public utility, Bending the River offers a replicable model to regenerate the 52-mile L. A. River, reconnect it to its floodplain, and form a citizens’ utility rooted in stewardship, adaptive reuse, and ecological repair.

Repatriation of Hopi Sacred Objects In an act of quiet philanthropy, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, through the Annenberg Foundation, becomes the mystery bidder at a contested Paris auction, anonymously purchasing 24 sacred Native American objects.

Rather than let the pieces disappear into private collections, Gregory buys these objects for the sole purpose of repatriating 21 of them to the Hopi Nation and three to the San Carlos Apache in Arizona. As Gregory notes, these are "not trophies to have on one's mantel," but living objects that belong at home with their people.

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts A substantial gift from the Annenberg Foundation, made at Wallis Annenberg's direction, launched the performing arts center in Beverly Hills, California, with world-class theatre, dance, and musical productions. Gregory Annenberg Weingarten continued that support by establishing GRoW @ The Wallis, an arts education hub for all ages.

100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio undertake 100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct , a one-month, 240-mile performative action commemorating the centenary of the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

With permission from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 100 mules walk the length of the aqueduct from the Owens Valley toward Los Angeles, tracing the route of the city’s imported water and honoring the mule labor force that helped to make the aqueduct possible. The action reconnects Los Angeles with the source of its water, bringing the Owens Valley back into the narrative of the L. A.

watershed and transforming infrastructure into a living procession of memory, reciprocity, and repair. Using their live cams, Charles Annenberg Weingarten’s explore. org and the Katmai Conservancy in Alaska stage the first annual Fat Bear Week, a bracket-style tournament to determine the champion brown bear that has gained the most pre-hibernation weight.

Fat Bear Week has since grown into a viral sensation, helping to raise awareness about wildlife conservation. Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island For more than a decade, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten champions the pair of celebrated American landmarks by helping to fund expansions, renovations, and programs. He is honored with the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island Award.

Annenberg Wildlife Crossing Groundbreaking for the world's largest urban wildlife bridge begins on Earth Day. In an effort to bolster public funding, the Annenberg Foundation, at Wallis Annenberg’s direction, made a grant in 2016 to the public-private initiative that is building the overpass.

Spanning a major Southern California freeway, the project grows out of more than two decades of research by the National Park Service and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Now a global model for wildlife conservation, the crossing is scheduled to open in December 2026. Zen Den at Aspen Ideas Festival Charles Annenberg Weingarten's explore.

org helps attendees at this Aspen Institute-hosted festival to relax between panel discussions with a lounge featuring live-cam coverage of wild animals from all over the planet. Charles becomes a frequent speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival, offering insights on such topics as wildlife education and the impact of climate change on nature.

Charles Annenberg Weingarten releases his award-winning short documentary Saving Our Ancestors — a portrait of primatologist Dr. Biruté Galdikas — and explore. org launches an Earth Day fundraiser to support Orangutan Foundation International.

Watts Towers and World Monuments Fund A longtime champion of preservation and a board member of the World Monuments Fund, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten helps to bring Los Angeles' Watts Towers into WMF's Irreplaceable America campaign. Through GRoW, Gregory directs support toward preserving the landmark.

In honor of their late mother, the Board of Directors of the Annenberg Foundation — Lauren Bon, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, and Charles Annenberg Weingarten — partners with the County of Los Angeles and the Cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills to declare July 15 as Wallis Annenberg Day. These civic honors celebrate her philanthropy and leadership at the Annenberg Foundation.