OVERVIEW: The AG Foundation is a major supporter of visual arts, especially in and around New York City. The foundation has recently expanded its giving for social justice, reproductive health and other progressive causes.
IP TAKE: Agnes Gund, best known for her deep support and involvement with New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, passed away in 2025, leaving much about her foundation’s future in question. Recent years’ tax filings evidence Gund’s increasing interest progressive causes like social justice, reproductive rights and climate change. While the foundation will likely remain an arts-focused funder, new opportunities may emerge at the intersection of the arts and activism. Gund’s daughters, Catherine Gund and Anna Traggio, are expected to take the reigns.
The AG Foundation has traditionally kept a low profile, and it is unclear if this will change with its founder’s passing. At this writing, the foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals, so networking with past grantees, of which there are many, may be the best way forward. Contact information is provided below.
PROFILE: Established in 1988, the AG Foundation is the philanthropy of the late New York City-based arts patron, collector of modern and contemporary art, and social justice advocate Agnes Gund. Much admired in New York City art circles, Gund was instrumental to the expansion of MoMA in the 1990s and the museums merger with P.S. 1, which focuses on contemporary art, “boundary-breaking ideas and experimental practices.” Gund’s father, George Gund II, was president and chairman of Cleveland Trust, once Ohio’s largest bank. Agnes graduated with a B.A. in history from Connecticut College and an M.A. in art history from Harvard University. She served as served as president of the Museum of Modern Art for more than a decade and is the recipient of a National Medal of Honor and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Getty Museum. Though she never made the Forbes billionaire list, Gund family net worth was estimated at $3.4 billion earlier last decade. According to her obituary, her later years were marked by increasing involvement with social causes, and she sold many pieces from her vast art collection to support the causes she cared about. In 2023, she sold a beloved work, Lichtenstein’s Mirror #5, for $3.1 million to support organizations that advocate for reproductive rights.
The AG Foundation does not maintain a website, which makes it difficult to locate further information on its priority areas and grantmaking strategies. Gund’s two daughters, Catherine Gund and Anna Traggio, are trustees and will likely take the reigns with their mother’s passing. Tax filings suggest that the AG Foundation primarily funds grantmaking related to visual arts. It also supports progressive causes including reproductive health and rights, climate concerns, racial justice and more. While giving is national in scope, the New York City area is the main site of Gund’s grantmaking. Smaller geographic priorities include Massachusetts and the Cleveland area, where Agnes Gund was born.
Grants for Arts and Culture
Historically, visual arts has been the greatest area of giving and involvement for Agnes Gund and the AG Foundation. The AG Foundation does not have a website to guide grantseekers, but the foundation’s largest grants have gone to organizations with which Gund was involved.
- At the top of the list is New York City’s MoMA, where Gund served as president of the board for eleven years and oversaw the museums development and expansion in the 1990s, including the acquisition of PS 1 in Queens. The museum received millions over the years.
- Gund was a founder and board chair of Studio in a School, a non-profit organization she established in 1977 in response to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts classes from New York City public schools.
- Over the years, Gund gave at least $10 million to Cleveland Museum of Art, where she sits on the board. The Gund family have been strong patrons of the museum for years.
- The foundation has awarded grants to dozens of other museums and visual arts organizations, mostly in New York City. Grantees include the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Frick Collections and the Socrates Sculpture Park.
- To a lesser extent, the foundation has supported arts and culture organizations outside of the world of visual arts. Grantees include School of American Ballet, Theatre for a New Audience, the Jewish Museum and Harlem Stage.
- Outside of the New York City area, grants have supported the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the UCLA Hammer Museum.
Grants for Reproductive Health and Justice
In addition to her passion for contemporary art, Gund was a strong advocate for social justice and women’s rights.
- In response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2023, Gund sold one of her favorite art works, Lichtenstein’s Mirror #5, for $3.1 million and donated the proceeds to abortion advocacy organizations.
- Grants from the AG Foundation have supported women’s and reproductive rights organizations including the National Network of Abortion Funds, the Groundswell Fund, Commonsense Childbirth and Women’s Support Services of Sharon, Connecticut.
Grants for Environment, Climate Change and Clean Energy
The AG Foundation does not articulate goals for its climate and environmental giving but appears to support organizations that focus on sustainable and equitable transition to a clean energy economy.
- In a recent year, the foundation gave just over $16 million to the Just Transition Fund, which works to “create opportunity for the communities hardest hit by coal’s decline.”
- Other grantees include Oceana, the solar solutions enterprise Little Sun, the Alaska Conservation Foundation and the Untermeyer Gardens Conservancy in Yonkers, New York.
Grants for Global Health, Public Health and Diseases
Health is a smaller area of giving for the AG Foundation, and grants appear to support organizations with which Gund maintained special interest or connection.
- Grantees include the Foundation Fighting Blindness, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Aid for AIDS International and Soft Power Health, a small organization that works to “provide affordable, quality primary healthcare, health education and prevention to the people of Uganda.“
Grants for Higher Education
Higher education represents another small area of giving for the AG Foundation. Giving overlaps with the foundation’s strong interest in visual arts, supporting art programs at recipient colleges and universities.
- At her alma mater, Connecticut College, Gund endowed the Agnes Gund ’60 Dialogue Project “to build a generation of leaders capable of respecting and expressing a broad range of divergent ideas and opinions.”
- Other higher education grantees include the Julliard School, Brown University, the University of Texas and Amherst College.
Grants for Racial Justice, Criminal Justice Reform and Democracy
While visual arts are by far the foundation’s largest focus area, Gund became increasingly interested in social justice in her last decade. Grantmaking for social and racial justice causes have received strong support in recent years.
- The Art for Justice Fund was established in 2017 with seed funding provided with proceeds from the sale of Roy Lichtenstein’s Masterpiece. The fund awarded about $127 million grants over six years for programs and policy related to ending mass incarceration and improving outcomes for justice-involved people. The fund is credited with catalyzing other major funders to increase their support for justice reform causes. Gund supported many organizations working at the intersection of art and justice, which brought artists and advocates together to “end mass incarceration, shift the narrative around criminal legal transformation, and envision a future where shared safety is available to all” from 2017 to 2023.
- In the New York City area, the AG Foundation has awarded grants to the Citizens Union Foundation of the City of New York, Puppies Behind Bars, the Innocence Project and the New York Women’s Foundation.
- Other AG Foundation grantees include the Voter Participation Center, the Solidaire Network, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Social Good Fund.
Grants for Human Services
Only a few grants have supported human services and these mainly target organizations providing housing and other services to New York City’s vulnerable residents.
- Grantees include Fountain House, Housing Works Inc. of Brooklyn, the Fresh Air Fund, God’s Love We Deliver and Women in Need.
Important Grant Details:
The AG Foundation made about $8 million in grants in its most recent year of filings, with the vast majority of grants ranging from $1,000 to $500,000. Grants of a million or more have been made in a few cases. The foundation’s median grant size is about $25,000.
- Visual arts are the foundation’s largest giving interest by far, and more than half of its giving stays in the New York City area.
- However, many small arts organizations in New York and elsewhere, have received smaller grants.
- Social justice, reproductive rights, criminal justice reform and human services are much smaller areas of giving, but funding has increased in recent years.
- This foundation does not accept unsolicited grant applications from nonprofits. Contact information is provided below.
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CONTACT:
AG Foundation
517 Broadway, 3rd Fl.
East Liverpool, OH 43920
(330) 385-3400
