Remuseum and Doris Duke Foundation Launch Vanguard Award for Innovative Arts Leaders

Today, think tank Remuseum is launching The Vanguard, an award and accelerator for innovative arts leaders, in partnership with the Doris Duke Foundation. The Vanguard’s $100,000 annual award will recognize up to ten leaders who are exploring new ways to strengthen arts institutions, and a year-long accelerator will help them refine, implement, and evaluate their ideas. The first award and accelerator of its kind, The Vanguard celebrates leaders who are ready to center the public in their work in new ways, building models for increased relevance and sustainability in the arts.

“At a difficult time for the arts, innovative solutions are more important than ever, but too many arts leaders operate in a risk-averse culture (and with a lack of risk capital) that makes it hard to try out new ideas,” said Stephen Reily, Founding Director of Remuseum. “Because of the creative sector’s acute need for forward-thinking leadership, The Vanguard seeks to surround such leaders with praise over doubt, and to recognize and support them (as a group) as the vanguard showing us a way forward.”

“Innovation is scary and innovators are often written off as heretics. Some of the most transformational ideas in the arts were deeply unpopular when they were first proposed. This award recognizes and supports leaders with the temerity to blaze new trails on behalf of the power of the arts to improve our lives and society,” said Sam Gill, President and CEO of the Doris Duke Foundation.

The Vanguard arrives as a natural extension of Remuseum’s work to date, which has highlighted new ways for museums to fulfill their public-centered missions in the face of many structural challenges, including: declining attendance and revenue (including from governmental support), increasing costs, and norms and incentives that strongly favor the status quo. 

Through research, case studies, and convenings, Remuseum has consistently learned that even well-established arts leaders with new ideas for making their work matter to more people are reluctant or unable to implement those ideas in cultures where caution and fear may guide their boards, their colleagues, and even external stakeholders. At a time of radically shifting cultural, political, and philanthropic agendas, that fear of change may ultimately threaten the survival of the field itself.

Until today, creative arts leaders have lacked external support for the kind of work that their own institutions often give artists, and that other sectors routinely offer innovative leaders with both risk capital and incubators for new ideas. Recognizing this scarcity, The Vanguard sets out to identify the leaders most likely to shape a future in which the arts can fulfil their highest civic function, and to acknowledge that the best ideas will come not from funders but from forward-looking leaders themselves.

“The Vanguard Award is a welcome and vital addition to the arts and culture field,” says Mariko Silver, President and CEO of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “In this period of significant cultural shift, brave and entrepreneurial leaders need the support and resources to be bold. The award’s invitation to center the public and build sustainability into the arts ecosystem reaffirms the essential relationship between investments in the arts and the creation of shared civic space animated by imagination and vision.”

The $100,000 grant that accompanies each award will go to that leader’s institution, to support ideas developed in The Vanguard’s 12-month accelerator program. That program begins with a week-long retreat at Shangri La, the Doris Duke Foundation’s global center for culture and ideas in Honolulu, Hawaii, followed by a year of monthly coaching sessions, regional peer gatherings, and collaborative workshops, culminating in a public presentation of their work and findings to the broader arts community. The accelerator and its curriculum, tailored specifically for cultural leaders, has been designed by Jenny Larios Berlin, entrepreneur in the creative and tech sectors, Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and will be co-taught with Gregory Bunch, entrepreneur and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and is advised by Ethernet Inventors Professor of Entrepreneurship Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.

The Vanguard Award is available to leaders of U.S.-based nonprofit visual and performing arts organizations with annual operating budgets greater than $1 million. The selection process will begin through a 5-week open call beginning on May 18, 2026, with winners announced in Fall 2026. Full guidelines and eligibility information can be found at remuseum.org/thevanguard. 

Applicants will be reviewed by an expert panel, and awardees will be selected based on both their demonstrated willingness to lead in new ways and their track record for implementing new ideas in their institutions. As The Vanguard itself grows over the coming years, members of previous cohorts will serve as mentors to future recipients, creating a sustained network of cultural innovators.