$10 million, 745 stages: Jody Allen, sister of $2.65 billion philanthropic donor Paul Allen and her family foundation bet on smallest arts groups

In Othello, a farm town in Adams County where the arts rarely get much funding, a historic brick building called The Old Hotel Art Gallery remains open.

For three years running, it has received a $25,000 grant.

The money has paid staff a living wage, carried the gallery through the lean months before its annual fundraiser, and paid for renovations that turned the old building into a source of rental income. Its director, Samantha Copas, puts it plainly: one year’s award “truly kept our doors open.”

That kind of help, at that scale, is the point of a program Jody Allen has backed for years.

Most recently, Allen Family Philanthropies, the Seattle foundation she co-founded with her late brother, Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, and now leads as board chair and president, announced $10 million in unrestricted grants to 745 arts and culture organizations across Washington State. This isn’t one big check to one institution.

It’s the fourth round of the Community Accelerator Grant, which ArtsFund, the statewide arts advocacy and grantmaking nonprofit, runs with funding from the Allen Foundation.

Grants range from $2,500 to $25,000.

They reach groups in 37 of Washington’s 39 counties, and every recipient has an annual budget under $1 million.

The partners also committed another $10 million for 2027, which brings the program to $50 million over five years.

Jody Allen is the steady presence behind this work.

Paul Allen was the public face of the family’s fortune, but she was there from the start.

In 1986 she co-founded the investment and project company that became Vale Group, and in 1988 the two of them started the family foundation.

She is the founding director of Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, co-founder and chair of the Allen Institute, and chair of the new Fund for Science and Technology.

She also spent years on the boards of the arts institutions she now helps fund, including ArtsFund itself, the Museum of Glass, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Theatre Communications Group.

Years ago, a Seattle arts leader at Artist Trust described her approach as looking at “the whole spectrum of arts organizations, the smaller and scrappier as well as the more established.”

This year’s grants follow that instinct closely.

The program changed this year on purpose.

A study by the foundation and SMU DataArts looked at the first three years of grants and found a quiet strain: between 2023 and 2024, organizations with budgets under $1 million lost an average of one staff position, while larger ones added an average of five.

So the program gave its money only to the smaller groups.

Fewer organizations were eligible, but each grant grew.

The average award rose about 25%, from $10,753 last year to $13,423, which can be a real share of the yearly budget for a community theater or a folk school.

The study also showed that the approach works.

Among organizations funded all three years, 84% invested more in staff, expanded their programs, and diversified their revenue.

Nearly half of this year’s grantees have now been funded in all four rounds.

A list of recipients reads like a tour of the state. In Walla Walla, Picture Lab received $10,000 to keep its teaching artists, buy supplies, and bring free art education to 12 schools across six districts.

“These opportunities are especially important for students whose schools lack dedicated art teachers and for families facing financial or transportation barriers,” said Executive Director Nelly Pilares.

In Wenatchee, the Mariachi Northwest Festival received $17,500.

In Vancouver, Bravo! Concerts Northwest is using its $17,500 to add concerts at new venues and to bring Grammy-nominated Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo to its next festival.

Tacoma’s Fablab got $25,000, and Bellingham Makerspace got $2,500.

In Thurston County, 29 organizations shared $450,000, from the Olympia Youth Chorus to Capital City Pride to a Hawaiian civic club.

In Lewis County, Mineral Arts and Residences received $20,000, and Evergreen Playhouse, in a town of just a few thousand people, received $7,500.

The money reached every region: 496 grantees in Northwest Washington, 132 in the Southwest, 67 in the East, and 50 in Central Washington.

More than a fifth are in rural counties, and 12 of Washington’s 29 federally recognized tribes are among the recipients.

The program prioritizes communities mainstream funding has often missed, including organizations centering BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled artists.

The way the money is given matters as much as the amount.

The grants are unrestricted, and recipients don’t have to file reports.

That is rare in philanthropy, and it reflects trust that the people running a small arts organization know best where a dollar should go.

Grantees say they spend it first on programming, then on salaries and labor, then on rent, mortgages, and facility upgrades.

“This model now supports nearly a thousand organizations and the impact of their creative work, helping to make our local communities more vibrant and healthy,” said Lara Littlefield, the foundation’s executive director.

Michael Greer, president and CEO of ArtsFund, said the program “continues to reflect the value of flexible funding in catalyzing organizational health, experimentation, and investment in communities.”

The need is real.

Washington’s creative sector adds about $79 billion to the state economy, yet the state’s per-capita arts spending trails the national average by 57%.

Ticket revenue across the field is still below pre-pandemic levels, and rising costs have outpaced most gains.

In that setting, a private program this broad stands out.

It is among the largest private grant programs for Washington’s arts and larger than some public ones; ArtsWA, the state arts agency, is giving out $2.8 million this year.

The Community Accelerator Grant fits into a wider pattern for Allen Family Philanthropies.

This past summer, the foundation committed $5 million to 10 creative youth development programs statewide.

Last year it committed nearly $7 million to eight Seattle Center nonprofits, including KEXP and MoPOP, to expand young people’s access to the arts.

Arts and culture now accounts for $42.3 million of the foundation’s active grants, alongside its work on youth and the environment.

Paul Allen gave more than $2 billion in his lifetime, often to large projects: brain science, ocean health, and museums named after him.

Jody Allen has carried that commitment forward, and this program shows another side of it.

It doesn’t create a landmark.

It’s 745 grants, many smaller than a used car, sent to the gallery in Othello, the chorus in Olympia, and the classroom in Walla Walla with no conditions attached.

Next year, another $10 million is set to go out the same way.