The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation has been a funder of ACC for several years. In late 2023, the Foundation started a conversation with us about the ACC Awards program to explore whether adding a cash award for hands-on practitioners would align with our program goals and the Foundation’s priorities. This led to a series of conversations that culminated in the Foundation’s decision in early spring 2024 to provide this grant to ACC.

The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation was started in 2018 by Delle Maxwell and Pat Hanrahan to “support individual teachers, scientists, conservationists, artists, and creators whose diverse perspectives enable us to discover new things about ourselves and our world.” The Foundation has four broad areas of funding interest: hands-on science, art and craft, teachers and classrooms, and protecting nature. More information is available online.

In accordance with Maxwell/Hanrahan’s focus on hands-on practitioners, ACC will provide cash awards to our 2024 Fellows and Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship recipients.

The decision about which ACC Awards would be accompanied by cash awards emerged from conversations between ACC and the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation and reflects the Foundation's focus on supporting hands-on practitioners. ACC staff requested funding for cash awards in amounts that reflect the broader landscape of award funding in our field.

A core component of ACC’s mission is to foster the livelihoods of craft artists, which we have done for more than 80 years through a variety of activities. Over the next five years, one of our objectives is to increase financial support, broadly defined, from ACC to artists. We are grateful for Maxwell/Hanrahan’s partnership in advancing this objective through the ACC Awards program.

The grant period for this Maxwell/Hanrahan funding covers our biennial awards in 2024 and 2026. We will seek to continue our partnership with Maxwell/Hanrahan for awards cycles in 2028 and beyond, and to approach other funders as well.

The benefits of being selected as an ACC Award recipient include prominent coverage in American Craft magazine, a professionally produced video featuring each Award recipient that the recipient may use for a range of purposes, the opening or expanding of an artist file in the ACC Library and Archives to advance future scholarship and research, a complimentary lifetime membership to ACC, and recognition in a celebration program led by colleagues and peers in the field. ACC is deeply grateful to the Windgate Charitable Foundation for providing the funding that makes so many of these benefits possible.

ACC will continue exploring a variety of avenues and opportunities to secure funding for cash awards to Honorary Fellows and Award of Distinction recipients. While the Aileen Osborn Webb Award for Philanthropy is also part of our biennial ACC Awards program, we would not seek to add a cash award to it given that award’s purpose.

The large majority of this grant will go to cash awards for 2024 and 2026 Fellows and Gold Medal recipients. The remainder will cover a modest amount of program staff time and an Awards Committee Chair honorarium to support building relationships with people and organizations that can help increase the number of nominations submitted for heritage and traditional craft practitioners. These artists are a focus for the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation and a segment of makers ACC seeks to serve and engage more fully under our strategic plan.

In addition to this new funding from Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, the ACC Awards have benefitted from critical and continuous funding from the Windgate Charitable Foundation for the past several years. Windgate’s support has enabled award-winning coverage of Awards recipients in American Craft, professionally produced video interviews with all Awards recipients, and the ACC Awards celebration, among other program elements.

The ACC Awards is a longstanding program that recognizes artists and appreciators for exceptional contributions to the field of craft with the lifetime distinction of Fellow of the Council. The value of peer-based recognition is deeply rooted in this program. Accordingly, Fellows and Honorary Fellows are nominated by past Fellows, as well as a small selection of guest nominators. To be eligible, nominees must demonstrate leadership in the field, outstanding ability as an artist/hands-on practitioner, or as a curator, scholar, advocate, etc., and 25 years or more of professional achievement. The Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship is ACC’s lifetime achievement award and can only be given to an ACC Fellow. Selection of the Fellows, Honorary Fellows, and Gold Medalists rests with the ACC Awards Committee, which is composed of Fellows and Honorary Fellows. For more information about all the ACC Awards and a list of all recipients since the Awards began, please visit ACC’s website.