Museum of Performance & Design

Established in 1947 as the San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum, the recently renamed Museum of Performance & Design is the only West Coast library/museum dedicated to performing arts. Its collection includes 3.5 million photographs, scene and costume designs, videotapes, periodicals, sheet music, and books chronicling a century of San Francisco's performing arts history. It also serves as the official archive for the SF Ballet, SF Opera, Stern Grove Festival, and the Ethnic Dance Festival. The organization has amassed an important collection valued at $5.5 million, but currently faces significant challenges, as it is housed in a San Francisco government building that is due to be closed for two years for a seismic retrofit beginning in 2012. The Museum's leadership and board aspire to purchase and renovate a $30-$40 million permanent home in downtown San Francisco in the next three years, but the organization has some serious financial difficulties: it has been running operating deficits on its current $1 million annual budget, has very little cash on hand, is very dependent on contributed income, and has no major public commitments to suggest that a capital campaign of the scale that it is proposing is realistic and attainable. The organization has been unable to grow its small membership, and while it articulates a desire to modernize its public access to materials, especially by digitizing audio and video tapes of historic performances to be viewed online, its limited capacity has prevented it from making progress toward this goal. A tie-off grant would help the Museum prepare for its upcoming period of transition.

Established in 1947, San Francisco Performing Arts Library and Museum (SF PALM) is the only West Coast library/museum dedicated to performing arts. Its collection includes photographs, scene and costume designs, videotapes, periodicals, sheet music and books chronicling a century of San Francisco’s performing arts history; recent acquisitions include a prized collection of 2,500 tapes from pioneering rock station KSAN and the entire David Hockney Stage Design Archive worth $2.5 million. ach year, more than 11,000 children and adults visit the Library to use the research facilities, attend performances, exhibitions, symposia, and conversations with artists. SF PALM also serves as the official archive for many local arts groups including Hewlett grantees SF Ballet, SF Opera, Stern Grove Festival and the Ethnic Dance Festival and partners with 14 oither Bay Area arts organizations to present off-site exhibitions. Ongoing support for SF PALM furthers the Foundation’s interest in stimulating increased access to, and participation in the arts. Moreover, the educational component of SF PALM's work, both for school children and scholars advances program strategy around arts education. Over the next three years general operating support will also enable SF PALM to lay the foundation for a new facility under its new name "The Museum of Performance and Design."