An unrestricted gift to the Fine Arts Work Center endowment is one of the most impactful ways you can support our mission and ensure a strong financial future. 

The Work Center’s endowment fund is managed by investment professionals with the oversight of the Finance Committee, a standing committee of the Board of Trustees. Contributions to our endowment generate investment income that meaningfully supports our work today and in the future.  

Endowment gifts can also be restricted to support the Fellowship program in perpetuity. Learn more about our endowed Fellowships below.

Planned giving offers supporters the opportunity to make a gift to our endowment or annual fund through a bequest. We are very grateful to the generous individuals who include a provision in their will designating a fixed amount of assets or percentage of a residuary estate to the Fine Arts Work Center. 

To explore a gift to the endowment or learn more about planned giving opportunities, please contact Executive Director Sharon Polli at 508.487.9960.

Endowed Fellowships

Major gifts to underwrite the Fellowship and associated initiatives are essential to our ability to offer this signature program. By design, Fellowships generate no revenue. The purpose is to provide, without charge, time and space to emerging artists and writers so that they can create new work.

To run the program each year, it costs the Work Center nearly $50,000 per Fellow, for a total of approximately $1,000,000. Support for the Funds identified below gives recognition to major donors and their families and friends whose contributions to our endowment over the years help provide support in perpetuity, based on investment income, for the cost of the Fellowship Program.  We thank all donors, both past and present, for their generosity in providing this support.

Endowed Fellowship Fund

Generous contributions during the Work Center’s first half century have made possible the following Endowed Fellowships:

Elise Asher Visual Arts Fellowship

Iva Kaplan Ashner Creative Writing Fellowship

Milton and Sally Avery Visual Arts Fellowship

Louise Bourgeois Visual Arts Fellowship

Bydale Poetry Fellowship

Alan Dugan/Judith Shahn Fellowship in Creative Writing/Visual Arts

Richard Florsheim Visual Arts Fellowship

Robert C. Graham Visual Arts Fellowship

Stanley Kunitz Fellowship in Poetry

Christine Fairchild Magriel Visual Arts Fellowship

Richard McCann Prose Writing Fellowship

Robert Motherwell Visual Arts Fellowship

Margaret Murphy Fellowship in Creative Writing/Visual Arts

Hunter O’Hanian Fellowship

Grace Paley Creative Writing Fellowship

George Rickey Visual Arts Fellowship

Alix Ritchie and Marty Davis Fellowship in Creative Writing/Visual Arts

David Shainberg Visual Arts Fellowship

Myron Stout Visual Arts Fellowship

Kenneth Stubbs Visual Arts Fellowship

Hudson D. and Ione Walker Fellowship in Creative Writing and Visual Arts

Bill Webb Fellowship for Fiction

Annual Fellowship Fund

A donation of $45,000 a year provides a Named Annual Fellowship for an artist or writer in the year it is made.  This level of support may be renewed annually. Generous supporters have made possible the following Annual Fellowships:

The Rona Jaffe Foundation Fellowship

Scott Douglas Visual Arts Fellowship