The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation aims to advance public interest and awareness, foster innovative scholarship, and promote dynamic partnerships in the arts and art history fields. It supports a variety of initiatives that offer new insights into art niches such as Art of the Spanish Americas, Digital & Media Art, Japanese Bamboo, and Post-War Painting & Sculpture, alongside arts and culture of the American Southwest.
The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation's Collections-Related Grants for Nonprofits program is designed to support projects that align with the foundation’s interests in certain art fields. The broad goals of this grant program include raising the public profile of selected art genres, advancing art historical scholarship, and fostering exhibitions and academic research that offer original perspectives and insights into the foundation's areas of interest. Specific causes supported by the grant include:
Our funding priorities lean heavily towards initiatives that feature one or more artists represented in our collections. We also favor supporting projects led by small to mid-sized institutions, particularly those based in or related to our geographic regions of focus, which encompass New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.