NASAA is delighted to introduce Maren Brown and Mary Margaret Shoenfeld. Between them, Maren and Mary Margaret have worked directly with 20 of the 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies, along with all 6 RAOs. They come to us with a deep appreciation of the transformative work of state arts agencies and a foundational belief that state arts agencies are the bedrock of our nation’s arts infrastructure.
Maren Brown is the principal of the arts consulting firm Maren Brown Associates, LLC, and has over 30 years of experience in the field of arts management in arts service organizations, art and history museums, and arts in higher education.
Brown has consulted on strategic plans for a variety of state and regional arts agencies, including Mid Atlantic Arts, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Delaware Division of the Arts, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, New England Foundation for the Arts and Vermont Arts Council. She has worked extensively with state arts agencies and regional arts organizations, national service organizations, and foundations to meet their consulting and training needs. These include the Barr Foundation, Western States Arts Federation, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Americans for the Arts, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (National Arts Partnerships Program), Illinois Arts Council, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Arkansas Arts Council, Wisconsin Arts Board, Connecticut Office of the Arts, California Arts Council, Washington State Arts Commission and Tennessee Arts Commission, among others. Brown founded the arts management degree program and the National Arts Policy Archives and Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and has delivered multiple training programs on various arts management subjects—ranging from strategic planning to program evaluation in arts organizations—to thousands of arts practitioners nationwide. She is the coeditor of the fifth and sixth editions of Fundamentals of Arts Management, used in 45% of the arts management degree programs in the nation. Brown has an M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is also a practicing egg tempera painter.
As an independent arts management consultant, Mary Margaret Schoenfeld’s particular focus and expertise is in working with arts funding agencies. These include planning and facilitation work with the Barr Foundation, the US Regional Arts Organizations, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Delaware Division of the Arts, Vermont Arts Council and Vermont Historical Records Program, Cultural Affairs Office of the Arlington (VA) Economic Development Department, Oklahoma Arts Council, and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
Schoenfeld has provided training programs for state arts agencies in California, Illinois and Tennessee, and served as a grant review panelist for state arts agencies in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. She served for 10 years as the national coordinator for the six U.S. regional arts organizations, representing them on the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies board of directors. She also previously served as the coordinator for the National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and Emergency Response (NCAPER), and helped develop their strategic plan. A former state and local arts agency staff member, Schoenfeld also managed community development and local arts agency service programs at Americans for the Arts, where she coordinated the work of the U.S. Urban Arts Federation and managed community and economic development-focused professional development opportunities for the field. She has an M.A. in public affairs from the University of Minnesota, and has taught in the arts management graduate programs at Goucher College and George Mason University. Schoenfeld lives in Arlington, Virginia, where she serves as a member of and sits on the Executive Committee of the Economic Development Commission.