The Kenneth Rainin Foundation awarded $617,970 to 16 arts organizations through the Rest and Care Awards for Arts. Each organization will receive a grant of up to $40,000 to support a six-week sabbatical for its executive leader. The grant covers pro-rated salary and benefits, organizational expenses related to planning and leave coverage and sabbatical expenses. These one-time awards commemorate the Foundation’s 15th anniversary of formal grantmaking and its vision of artists thriving in the Bay Area.
A unique collaboration between the Arts and Education programs, the Rest and Care Awards grew out of a shared recognition of the deep burnout affecting many of our grantees. Arts organizations are navigating elevated levels of financial strain, funding uncertainty, increased workloads and a heavy emotional toll. We believe that investing in leaders’ well-being is crucial for sustaining their impactful work. Our hope is that the six-week sabbatical will offer a meaningful boost, helping to foster individual and organizational resilience and long-term sustainability.
“We hear from grantees about the immense challenges and demands arts organizations face, and how it’s taking a toll,” said Sarah Williams, Arts Program Officer. “Our goal is to support these artistic leaders in stepping away, taking time for rest and centering themselves. By prioritizing their rest and renewal, we are supporting both their art and well-being so they can sustain their creativity and impact in their Bay Area communities.”
The Rest And Care Awardees For Arts
- AfroSolo Theatre Company and its Founder and Artistic Director Thomas R. Simpson
- Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation and its CEO Carolyn (C.J.) Johnson
- Circo Zero and its Artistic Director Keith Hennessy
- CounterPulse and its Executive Artistic Director Julie Phelps
- CubaCaribe and its Co-founder and Executive Director Jamaica Itule Simmons
- David Herrera Performance Company and its Founder and Artistic Director David Herrera
- Diamano Coura West African Dance Company and its Executive Artistic Director Naomi Gedo Diouf
- Dohee Lee Puri Arts and its Founder and Director Dohee Lee
- Flyaway Productions and its Founding Artistic Executive Director Jo Kreiter
- Grown Woman Dance Collective and its Artistic Executive Director Tonya Amos
- Lenora Lee Dance and its Founder and Artistic Director Lenora Lee
- Magic Theatre and its Managing Director Kevin Nelson
- PUSH Dance Company and its Founder and Artistic Director Raissa Simpson
- Shakespeare San Francisco and its Executive Director Toby Leavitt
- Sins Invalid and its Co-founder, Executive and Artistic Director Patty Berne
- Z Space Studio and its Executive Director Shafer Mazow
These grantees shared how this opportunity will benefit them and their organizations, including building staff capacity for more sustainable work and reconnecting with their own creative practice for healing and revitalization. These leaders have an average tenure of 19 years, making succession planning a key focus of the organizational support funds. The Rainin Foundation remains committed to supporting artists in ways that will sustain their creative practice in the Bay Area.
Learn more about the organizations that received the Rest and Care Award For Arts. Explore the organizations that received the Rest and Care Award for Education.
I preach and teach others how to rest and care for themselves so that they don’t feel overworked as I do. But I recognize that I also have to care for myself. I want to invest in my well-being for a longer healthier life and to be a stronger director of a cultural organization that many lean into for support and resources. It’s important for me to be here for my communities.
David Herrera, David Herrera Performance Company
How Organizations Were Selected To Apply
Current and former arts grantees were invited to apply based on the following criteria:
- Leadership tenure & commitment: length of service at an organization (in an executive leadership role since 2021) and demonstrated dedication to their organizations and artistic practice.
- Community Leadership: active engagement in the Bay Area arts ecosystem in recognition of the (often unpaid) additional labors leaders take on in supporting the larger community.
- Organizational Capacity: evidence that the organizational work will not be negatively disrupted, and work will continue to function effectively in the leader’s absence.
- BIPOC Leaders were prioritized to acknowledge the disproportionate impacts the pandemic had on BIPOC communities. A majority—69%—of the Arts Program’s Rest and Care Awards recipients are BIPOC-led organizations.
My ability to dream is vital to my organization’s strength and liberty power. As an anchor to my organization, I have found my ability to dream limited by the realities of nonprofit work over the past 5 years.
Raissa Simpson, PUSH Dance Company
How Leaders Will Be Supported
Beyond the grant funds, the Rest and Care Award also includes a comprehensive support program including:
- A half-day orientation focused on deepening participants’ understanding of the principles and practices necessary for creating experiences centered around rest and renewal. This gathering will provide practical tools, frameworks and templates to assist participants in developing comprehensive organizational plans to support their leave.
- Ten hours of personalized sabbatical coaching.
- Wellness Workshops led by the Teaching Well that will explore the “Four Pillars of Wellness” and enable participants to go deeper into the components that impact each pillar. This five-week virtual workshop series will be offered four times throughout the grant period and will be available to all current Arts and Education grantees. More information will be shared in the spring.
To consider care and rest is to consider the politics of care and rest, which is to ask questions about the ways that US American and global capitalist cultures determine who has the right to care and rest and under which conditions.
Keith Hennessy, Circo Zero
