The Luminary Awarded 2025-2028 Core Grant from Ruth Foundation for the Arts
The Luminary Awarded 2025-2028 Core Grant from Ruth Foundation for the Arts
1.9.2026
We are thrilled to share that The Luminary has been named a 2025–2028 Core Grant recipient by the Ruth Foundation for the Arts. As part of this national initiative, The Luminary will receive $150,000 in unrestricted funding over three years, providing critical long-term support for our artists, programs, and organizational sustainability.
The Ruth Foundation for the Arts’ Core Grant program supports arts and cultural organizations across the United States with multi-year, unrestricted funding—an investment designed to encourage reflection, stability, and expansive thinking. This 2025–2028 cycle marks a major expansion of the program, awarding $25.35 million to 169 organizations nationwide, nearly doubling the Foundation’s previous annual core funding commitment
For The Luminary, this support arrives at a pivotal moment. As an artist-led platform rooted in experimentation, we present exhibitions, residencies, performances, publications, and public programs that engage the pressing questions of the present. Unrestricted, multi-year funding allows us to plan beyond short grant cycles, deepen our support for artists, invest in our staff and infrastructure, and continue taking meaningful risks in our programming.
“Multi-year, unrestricted support is rare and truly transformative,” said Kalaija Mallery, Artistic & Executive Director of The Luminary. “This grant offers not only financial stability, but also trust—trust in our artists, our values, and our ability to think long-term about how we serve this city and contribute to a broader national conversation.”
Introduced in 2022, Ruth Arts’ Core Grants are shaped through peer review and thematic inquiry, encouraging organizations to reflect on their histories, values, and futures. The program brings together a wide range of organizations, from emergent spaces to longstanding institutions, offering a snapshot of the contemporary arts ecosystem and the many ways organizations are responding to today’s cultural landscape.
We are honored to join this cohort of organizations from across the country and proud to see St. Louis represented within this national network of artist-centered and experimental arts spaces. We extend our sincere thanks to the Ruth Foundation for the Arts for their belief in our work and for their commitment to sustained, values-driven support of the arts.
Learn more about Ruth Arts’ Core Grants here.