Our goal is to create unique collaborations that are mutually beneficial. For more information about sponsorship opportunities at the Walker, please contact Aaron Mack at 612.375.7582 or e-mail aaron.mack@walkerart.org.

The Walker Art Center provides its sponsors with the opportunity to reach nearly one million successful, well-educated adults who have significant decision-making and buying power.

 
The Facts

• The Walker Art Center is recognized as one of the world's leading centers for contemporary art, offering artistic and educational programs in the visual, performing, and media arts.
  
  
• The Walker Art Center is one of the 10 most-visited museums in the country.
  
  
• Walker exhibitions have received enthusiastic reviews in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Art in America, Artforum, and ARTnews also featured Walker exhibitions in recent cover stories.
  
  

• Since 1995, 17 Walker Art Center-organized exhibitions have made 53 stops in 47 museums, in 41 cities, in 14 states, in 11 countries around the globe. More than 2,468,000 people have been able to view these traveling exhibitions outside of the Twin Cities.
  
  
• During the 12 months ending June 30, 2000, the Walker's award-winning Web site attracted over 1.2 million visitors from all over the world who spent more than 140,000 hours viewing more than 7 million web pages.
  
  
• Over 3 million people have visited the 11-acre Minneapolis Sculpture Garden--the largest urban sculpture park in the nation--since it opened in 1988.
  
  
• Walker After Hours, a monthly gala geared toward young professionals, has sold out to building capacity since its inception in September 1997.
  
  
• More than 165,000 people (an average of 2,800 each month) have attended Free First Saturdays, a program begun in 1991 to help make the museum more accessible to families.
  
  
• Each year, education and community programs reach approximately 115,000 people of all ages and backgrounds throughout Minnesota.

Testimonials

"In an era of increasing global communication and interdependence, institutions such as the Walker Art Center allow us to exchange ideas, images, and information with our neighbors across the globe. Northwest Airlines is proud to support the efforts of the Walker Art Center in presenting international contemporary art and artists to audiences worldwide."

John Dasburg
President and CEO, Northwest Airlines

"The excellence and innovation of the Walker Art Center's programs greatly benefit Twin Cities residents. We are fortunate to have to one of the country's leading contemporary art museums located in our community."

Diane Lilly
Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota

"The General Mills Foundation is pleased to be a major contributor to the Walker because we believe that the visual arts are an essential ingredient of a healthy body and vital community.... The Walker successfully stimulates our creativity, broadens our experience, and makes a notable contribution to the quality of life in this place and far beyond."

David A. Nasby
Director of Community Affairs and Vice President, The General Mills Foundation

"Fundamentally, it's important to The St. Paul Companies to support the quality of life in our community, and the Walker is one of the institutions that contributes significantly to that quality. It's an opportunity for the company to reach out to the community, and for the community to be involved with the employees of the company."

Mary Pickard
Community Affairs Officer, The St. Paul Companies

"The Walker Art Center is one of the finest museums for the display of modern art in the nation."

The New York Times

"I'm proud to know that our support of the Walker makes its programs accessible to more people in our community. The Walker is one of the state's greatest resources."

Ralph Burnet
President and CEO, Coldwell Banker Burnet

• The Walker Calendar
  Distributed to 25,000 people regionally
  
  
• Exhibition Catalogues
  Typical printing 10,000; sold at the Walker Shops and international tour venues
  
  
• Program Materials
  Distributed at the Walker and through our community partners
  
  
• Press Releases
  Distributed to local, regional, national, and international media outlets
  
  
• Annual Report
  Sent to 2,500 major individual, corporate, and foundation donors
  
  
• Corporate Brochure
  Sent to local and national corporations
  
  
• Walker Art Center Lobby Donor Panel
  Seen by more than 1.5 million Walker Art Center and Guthrie Theater patrons
  
  
• Opening-Event Invitations
  Sent to more than 9,000 Walker members and distributed at the Walker box office

 
Sponsor Spotlight

The Walker is pleased to recognize the Betlach Family Foundation for its very generous support of Painting at the Edge of the World, a new Walker-organized exhibition of international painting that opens February 10, 2001. Painting at the Edge of the World features work by 30 artists from around the world, many of whom are being showcased in a major exhibition in the United States for the first time.

Walker Director Kathy Halbreich says, "Painting at the Edge of the World continues the Walker's ongoing commitment to organize major global exhibitions with the most provocative and challenging artists of our time. However, as many of these artists are still relatively unknown, it is very difficult to find funders who are prepared to support the risks inherent in presenting their work. The willingness of the Betlach Family Foundation to take this leap of faith with the Walker means so much to all of us and we are profoundly grateful for their intellectual and financial support of our work."

The Betlach Family Foundation was created to express the Betlach family's passion for contemporary art and environmental concerns and is based in California. Through the Foundation, the Betlach family is formalizing its commitment to the arts, the environment, and endangered species by creating a vehicle that can interact with established charitable organizations involved with these fields of interest. The Betlach Family Foundation's goal is to promote greater respect, tolerance, and harmony between people and the arts and between people and nature.