CASE STUDY
Community Foundation
of Western Mass
VALLEYCREATES
From Grantee to Co-Creator: Building an Arts Ecosystem
Challenge
In 2021, I was an artist applying for a $1,000 ValleyCreates grant from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts (CFWM). By 2024, I was a paid Community Advisor participating in decisions distributing millions. By 2025, CFWM invited me to represent our model at a statewide philanthropic leadership convening—the only artist on our delegation among executives from 8 participating community foundations.
The challenge: foundation funding is undergoing a renaissance. They support arts organizations through grants, but funding individual artists is rare—and giving artists paid seats at the table deciding where millions flow even rarer. Fewer still prove the model works at scale.
CFWM took a risk: What happens when you elevate artists from recipients to advisors? What transformation becomes possible when the people closest to the work hold institutional power? Could this model scale beyond one foundation's experiment?
Solutions
Between 2021–2023, three consecutive ValleyCreates grants ($9,000 total) catalyzed exhibitions of my work at the United Nations and 5 additional venues, $12,050 in competitive grants from 4 national funders, 6,650+ documented viewers across 18 months, and media coverage including WWLP TV, WHMP Radio, and a commissioned short documentary.
Direct artist grants aren't charity—they're venture capital. Small investments in artists with strategic vision create exponential returns in community impact, institutional credibility, and cultural transformation.
In 2024, after my third year in the program as a grantee, Senior Program Officer Nicole Bourdon—who has guided ValleyCreates since its 2017 inception—invited me to join as Community Advisor. Working alongside Nicole since the role's creation in 2018, founding advisors Rosemary Tracy Woods, Kent Alexander, Matthew Glassman, and Vanessa Pabón-Hernandez built the program's framework. Andrae Green and Irene 'I-SHEA' Shaikly served as advisors through December 2025.
Today, Vanessa continues with me. Led by Nicole and Program Officer Stephanie Reyes, we shape not just who receives funding, but how much flows where—grant amounts, program allocations, strategic priorities.
Since July 2024, I've participated in grant decisions distributing $167,500 to 51 individual artists and $6.5M to 135 nonprofits—reviewing applications, offering recommendations, and collaboratively shaping cohorts. I served as featured speaker at 2 of 3 major fundraisers supporting CFWM's $5M endowment campaign and advocated successfully for grant increases of 150% and 25%.
I wasn't hired despite being an artist—I was hired because I'm an artist who understands both sides. I know what $2,500 means to a struggling creator and how institutions think because I've navigated them successfully. That dual fluency is what foundations need but rarely access.
To spread the word, I maintain an ongoing list of artists across Western Massachusetts and personally contact each when grant rounds open—not mass emails, direct outreach. Artists who'd never heard of CFWM are now applying and getting funded.
In January 2025, I gathered 20+ ValleyCreates grantees in Springfield—strategically choosing Hampden County with the region's largest artist population and highest concentration of artists of color. Over a catered meal, artists who often work alone in studios shared their practices and connected in-person—suddenly having names, faces, shared struggles.
I also joined Andrae and Vanessa at a cohort excursion to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), hosted by Assets for Artists. Fifteen artists presented their work to the group—projecting images and speaking about their practice—learning to articulate their vision while making it visible to potential collaborators. The strategy worked: smaller working groups and co-mentoring relationships now continue independently.
ValleyCreates isn't just funding—it's a comprehensive ecosystem. Presented in partnership with Assets for Artists, an artist-led nonprofit dedicated to helping creatives build sustainable, self-determined careers, the program combines grants with cohort learning, 1:1 coaching, community building, and professional development workshops, ensuring artists have both resources and support to build lasting, values-driven careers.
Real infrastructure is trusted community members who know the landscape, speak the language, and personally recruit talent that would otherwise never surface.
To sustain ValleyCreates beyond the initial support from a major national arts funder, CFWM launched a $5M endowment campaign and selected me as featured speaker at 2 of 3 major fundraisers. I stood before donors not as recipient but as equal stakeholder reshaping Western Massachusetts' creative ecosystem. To date, they've raised $2M—40% of the goal in 18 months.
When artists and development professionals work together—speaking with lived authority about systemic change alongside institutional credibility—the message becomes more compelling than either could achieve alone.
Results
Since 2018, ValleyCreates has supported 136 artists through 237 grants totaling $428,500 and 135 arts organizations totaling $6.5M. The funding flowing to artists—combined with paid advisory roles—creates access that never existed. The $5M endowment, already 40% funded, will sustain this model permanently.
As Community Advisor since July 2024, I've participated in grant decisions distributing $167,500 to 51 artists and $6.5M to 135 nonprofits. I advocated successfully for grant increases of 150% and 25% and recruited dozens of new artists who'd never accessed foundation funding. I was invited by CFWM to a statewide foundation leadership convening as the only artist on our delegation—representing CFWM as the only Creative Commonwealth (CCW) foundation with both direct artist grants AND paid artist advisors.
I once saw foundation funding as inaccessible to individual artists—all resources, but no clear pathways in. Now I help decide where millions go, while artists across the region who'd never accessed that support are applying, getting funded, and building careers.
That transformation—from the margins to the center—is what systemic change looks like.
This is strategy that flows.
Impact
$6.5M
Recommended to 135 arts nonprofits as Advisor
$167,500
Recommended to 51 individual artists as Advisor
150% & 25%
Grant increases through collaborative advocacy
Featured
Speaker at 2 of 3 major fundraisers
1 of 8
Foundations giving artists grants and decision-making power
Only artist
On delegation to statewide foundation leadership summit
“Mark brings rare clarity and depth to complex challenges. As an artist, he approaches his advisory work the way he approaches his creative work—with curiosity and a deep respect for process. He listens with intention, thinks expansively, and turns insight into meaningful action. Phloetic is a natural extension of his ability to help people and organizations move forward with purpose and integrity.”
Nicole Bourdon
Senior Program Officer, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts
“Mark doesn’t just ‘advise.’ He helps shape the room. He helped build a new way of thinking about what’s possible when artists aren’t just invited in, but are trusted with real institutional power. He brings vision and rigor, but just as importantly, he brings a deep, steady belief that the people closest to the work should be the ones helping lead it. Mark is living proof that being an artist and being highly strategic are not at odds. In him, those things are held together with integrity—and that combination is powerful. Any organization trying to build something real, something lasting, needs Mark in the conversation.”
Andrae Green
Artist & Assistant Professor of Painting, Hartford Art School, former ValleyCreates Community Advisor (2020–2025)
“I was hesitant to apply again to ValleyCreates after being denied. But thanks to Mark’s encouragement, I took another shot. This grant didn't just give me the freedom to create; it gave me an opportunity to give back to my community in a real way. Looking back, I realize that taking that chance led to one of my best exhibitions yet.”
Kahli Hernandez
Artist, ValleyCreates Grantee
