Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation

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OVERVIEW: The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation supports educational programs and advocacy for children with learning differences. It also makes grants for visual arts and the environment.

IP TAKE: The Tremaine Foundation’s largest grantmaking initiative focuses on educational programs and advocacy for children with learning differences.

This accessible funder runs an open application program for grants pertaining to the planning and production of exhibitions of contemporary art and posts detailed application instructions on its website. For all other grants, the foundation accepts two-page letters of inquiry by mail, although, according to the foundation’s website, letters very rarely result in grant opportunities.  To better overcome this, make sure your inquiry is information-rich, well-organized, and shows how your work advances the foundation’s mission.

PROFILE: During their lives, Emily Hall Tremaine and husband, Burton Tremaine, were prolific collectors of 20th-century art. Their collection of more than 400 works was sold in the late 1980s, and the proceeds were used to endow the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, which is based in New Haven, Connecticut. This foundation’s goal is to “seek and fund innovative projects that advance solutions to basic and enduring problems.” Tremaine’s grantmaking focuses on visual art, the environment and support for children with learning differences.

Grants for K-12 Education

K-12 education is the Tremaine Foundation’s largest area of grantmaking and focuses exclusively on supporting children with learning differences. The foundation takes a holistic approach towards its goal. It names socio-emotional development, literacy, teacher development, classroom coaching, out-of-school learning and parent and community support as focus areas. The foundation does not name specific learning disabilities as areas of interest, but demonstrates a strong interest in dyslexia and attentional and processing disorders. In Vero Beach, Florida, the foundation has given to the Learning Alliance, a nonprofit that engages schools, families and communities in a “culture of literacy.” Another grantee, AIM Academy in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, provides college preparatory education for K-12 students with language-based learning disorders. Other recent education grantees include the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut; the Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio; Philadelphia’s Read by 4th and educational programs run by the Children’s Museum of Tacoma.  

Grants for Early Childhood Education

The Tremaine Foundation’s learning differences initiative also includes funding for kindergarten readiness and early childhood programs that screen children for disabilities in healthcare settings. One recent grant went to the Boston Children’s Hospital for the development of the Boston Early Literacy Screener, which helps teachers, parents and other practitioners identify the signs of early reading difficulty. Another grant supported a screening tool for socio-emotional development in young children at the Children’s Healthcare Foundation of Atlanta. And in Florida, the foundation has given to the Kindergarten Readiness Collaborative, which aims to create a high-quality, accessible and equitable early childhood education system.

Grants for Higher Education

The Tremaine Foundation does not name higher education as a grantmaking area of interest, but taxes reveal an interest in several public and private colleges, as well as universities in recent years. Grantees include Yale University, Berea College, Indiana University, Babson College, Wellesley College, and Sacred Heart University.

Grants for Visual Arts

Tremaine makes grants for the visual arts through two separate funding initiatives: Curators on the Cusp and Supporting Artist Careers. Curators on the Cusp supports “exhibitions, curators’ skill development, networking and learning and overall field building efforts.” Specific opportunities include the following grants:

  • The Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award is awarded triennially to a curator or curatorial team that “challenge conventional thought through the exploration of critical ideas.” The award is made up of as many as four components, including a core exhibition and publication grant of up to $150,000, a living artist honorarium of up to $10,000, a post-opening opportunity fund of up to $20,000 and an enhanced engagement fund of up to $20,000 for the support of projects and programs that broaden the traditional reach of an exhibit. Recent awards have gone to curators and teams working at organizations including LAXART, Oakland’s Museum of Capitalism and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York.

  •  Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Research Grants are awarded triennially to two curators and/or curatorial teams in the amount of $10,000 for research leading to the production of exhibitions of “contemporary art that are fresh and experimental in nature.” Specifically, the foundation seeks to encourage exhibitions that put “works of contemporary art and/or architecture in a new or unconventional aesthetic, historical, cultural, and/or social framework.” Exhibition research grants do not support exhibits on individual artists or collectives, art that was created prior to 1950, exhibits that are already scheduled or exhibits that are most likely to take place outside of the U.S. Recent grants have supported research toward the development of an exhibit on “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women” at the Missoula Art Museum and an exhibition entitled “Slow Frequency,” which addresses issues of visual arts and climate crisis at the Poor Farm in Milwaukee.

  • Peer Network Grants support conventions and collaborations between curators working in contemporary art. Grants are awarded in amounts ranging from $500 to $5,000 for a period of nine to twelve months.

  • Innovation Grants support projects or initiatives “not previously explored in the curatorial space, or an emerging trend that is under-resourced.” In addition to supporting contemporary visual arts projects, grants may also support “new ways of doing business” and may be “public facing or internal to an institution.” Innovation grants generally range from $500 to $15,000 and are awarded for a term of 12 to 18 months.

  • The Tremaine Foundation also funds a mentorship program through the Association of Art Museum Curators and a journalism for curators fellowship with the on-line art publication HYPERALLERGIC.

The Tremaine Foundation’s second and smaller arts funding initiative is Supporting Artist Careers. Grantmaking from this program aims to “expand career opportunities for visual artists by increasing access to business development expertise, entrepreneurial skills and related professional practice and career supports.” The foundation has worked collaboratively to create a formative assessment tool, Artists Thrive, and has made grants to visual arts organizations and incubators including Arts Connect International, the Artists Trust of Seattle, Creative Waco and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others.

 Grants for Environmental Conservation and Justice

The Tremaine Foundation makes grants for the environment, taking a cross-sector approach “to leverage knowledge and experience for the good of everyone.” The foundation names energy, housing, jobs, air, health, water and food as areas of interest and runs sub-initiatives for the state of Connecticut and equity and organizing on the national level. A significant portion of Tremaine’s environmental funding has gone to Sustainable CT, Inc., an organization that works with Connecticut’s cities and towns to advance sustainability. Other grantees include the American Sustainable Business Council, the Great Plains Institute and Maine’s Acadia Center.

Important Grant Details: 

The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation makes just over $2 million a year in grants. Grants are generally awarded in amounts up to $100,000, with an average grant size of about $15,000. Education is the foundation’s largest area of giving, followed by visual arts, which runs several specific grantmaking programs with awards of set amounts. The foundation offers information about past grantees on each of its program pages.

The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation runs an open application program for its triennial Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition and Research Grants and posts application guidelines, deadlines and FAQs on the program page. For all other grantmaking programs, the foundation accepts two-page letters of interest via mail but advises prospective grantees that “unsolicited proposals and letters of inquiry rarely develop into a grant.” This funder’s grantmaking generally results from “consultations with experts in our three focus areas to proactively identify organizations whose approaches match our strategies and priorities.” General inquiries may be submitted to the foundation’s staff via the contact page.

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