“The Theater Is My Favorite Church.” MAP Fund Supports Artists Through Cash and Coaching

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Founded in 1988 and launched by the Rockefeller Foundation, MAP Fund is one of the nation’s longest-running private grantmakers for new performance pieces, and a somewhat rare example of an arts funder focused on individual creators, artist duos or ensembles rather than on institutions. With a focus on investing “in performing artists and their work as the critical foundation of imagining and co-creating a more equitable and vibrant society,” MAP is now an independent organization employing five full-time and two part-time staff members. MAP has backing from philanthropies including the Doris Duke Foundation, the Mellon Foundation and the Jerome Foundation, as well as public funding. 

This year, MAP will give out $2.8 million to more than 90 projects, its largest annual investment in artists to date. Each two-year project grant of $30,000 includes $5,000 in unrestricted funds and $25,000 for the specific project. Each grant also includes a $1000 microgrant for artists to give to other creators within their communities. Previous MAP grantees include Anna Deavere Smith, Bill T. Jones and Larissa FastHorse. (Check out current grantees here.) 

Another unusual aspect of MAP: Since 2012, many grantees have received personalized coaching through its Scaffolding for Practicing Artists (SPA) program. David Blasher, MAP’s current executive director, originally came on in 2021 as the operations manager for SPA. He is passionate about the power of good coaching to help artists thrive. “Coaching is intimate. It’s having a partner to look at things with, from a different perspective, to help you reframe things. That kind of intimacy can be very important in our lives,” he said.

Before SPA, Blasher, who has a law degree, was working as the director of global legal operations and innovation at NBC Universal. He’d left that role and was looking for his next big thing. His previous experience included serving as chair of the board of Drama Club in New York City, which brings theater and improv to young people, many of whom are or were incarcerated. When he got the call about coming on to help operationalize MAP’s SPA program, it seemed like a perfect fit.

“The theater is my favorite church,” he said. “Music is my favorite language. Dance is how we learn to walk. Being able to be part of a group that is working so hard and providing such care to this thing that is ancient — performing arts — is very meaningful to me.” 

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SPA was born out of a request from MAP grantees for help navigating things like producing, collaborating and money management. It’s based on the principle of “accompaniment as policy” promoted by the late Paul Farmer, an anthropologist, physician, former chair of Harvard’s department of global health and social medicine, and cofounder of Partners in Health.

Through SPA, MAP is currently providing coaching for 81 grantees, each of whom receives seven one-on-one coaching sessions over the course of a year. Coaches, many of whom have been MAP grantees and/or SPA participants themselves, bring professional coaching training to the job. 

Consultant and MAP co-designer David Sheingold served as the first coach. He was soon joined by former SPA director and current MAP director of programs, Ron Ragin, along with arts and culture consultant Georgiana Pickett, who recently passed away, but held many leadership roles in the arts, including as executive director of the Baryshnikov Arts Center and artistic director at Miami-Dade College's Cultural Affairs Department. Other early coaches came to SPA through connections with these three. MAP did its first open call for coaches this past summer. 

Holly Bass, a 2022 MAP grantee and SPA participant, said that both the cash and the coaching have been invaluable to her as an artist. “We live in a culture that’s always sort of treating us like the work we do is not valid,” she said. “If I had a dollar for every person who says, ‘That must be fun!’ when I tell them I’m an artist. I mean, it is fun. But it’s also hard work. And it requires years of developing your craft. Having a SPA coach was this really validating experience.” 

Bass shared a story of doing a coaching call from a café and realizing that the sandwich she’d ordered was served on bread full of nuts and seeds, which she’s allergic to. 

“I was just going to eat the filling anyway, and Georgiana [my coach] was like, ‘No, we’re going to pause and make sure that you have something that you can eat and enjoy.’ I know that sounds like a small thing, but it was a really powerful reminder for me of how I’ve internalized this idea as an artist that asking for what I want and need is an imposition,” Bass said. “She really encouraged me to be more generous with myself. And to understand the value that I bring to so many situations, as an artist, as an intellectual, as a community builder.” 

Bass has been using her MAP funding to support the writing and development of a play called “The Trans-Atlantic Time Traveling Company,” which just opened March 1. She described the work as “a feminist, Afro-futurist play.” MAP funding also is helping support an intense form of after-show talk back Bass has tried in the past. Conversation facilitators lead discussions based on “the model of empathy interviewers. We found the conversations were more robust and vulnerable than what happens in a typical post-show talk. We literally had to kick people out of the theater so the crew could go home. That’s the kind of thing that a theater typically doesn’t have a budget for.”

Professional coaching plus peer support

SPA’s year-long coaching program culminates in two-day, facilitated, online gatherings of five to six artists each. Participants receive a $1,000 stipend to use toward childcare or other costs associated with attending the SPA gathering.

Each artist gets 70 minutes to talk about current concerns. The facilitator and other artists offer input. Conversations can cover issues including managing money, negotiating a relationship with a gallery, staying healthy while touring and building one’s practice as an artist. 

Many artists are still navigating (and eager to discuss) the changed performance landscape following the onset of COVID. “[It’s about] figuring out how to return to live performance, which in some cases isn’t where it was before in terms of the availability of theaters and audience participation. Artists are re-evaluating their role in live performance and how they can continue to sustain their practice,” Blasher said.

Bass said the gathering helped her feel like she isn’t alone in her work. “You wouldn’t think that meeting with people online for two days would be such a deeply emotional and supportive process, but it really was,” she said. “It was incredible to meet artists from places outside of the main art centers, like Boise, Idaho. There are people all over this country making really powerful work for their communities. There’s a nation full of justice-minded folks making good trouble with our art.”

Looking ahead

Out of MAP Fund’s current grantee cohort, more than half of those participating in SPA are Jerome Hill Fellowship artists, automatically invited to be part of the coaching program. The rest are other MAP solo grantees. 

Going forward, the team is trying to envision how group coaching might work. “It works best one-on-one,” and some of our grantees are ensembles,” Blasher said.

MAP also would like to offer longer periods of coaching to more artists and create more group gatherings. The overall goal: to increase artists’ feeling of agency in their artistic practice, output and career, and to build community. 

Regarding the value of coaching, Blasher said, “I have a friend who says, ‘Don’t worry alone.’ Have your finance team worry with you, your exercise team, the friends who will ask you the tough questions. Not that you should worry, but the coaches are asking the question within the question. 

“When you’re competent, that can be isolating. But you don’t have to figure it all out alone. Somebody else might be able to see something you can’t see. Particularly someone who is looking out for you and wants to be of service to you.”

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that David Blasher was brought on to help operationalize the SPA program, not to launch it.