From a Car Trunk to a Community Institution: A Milwaukee Nonprofit Celebrates 25 Years of Growth, Evolution, and Impact June 11, 2026

When Kimberly Abler and Teri Sullivan co-founded Arts @ Large in 2001, the Milwaukee nonprofit’s headquarters was the trunk of a car. Armed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and a desire to ensure that students in the Milwaukee Public Schools system had access to arts education as the district navigated art teacher shortages, the pair drove from school to school designing and implementing art integration curriculum that classroom teachers could incorporate in their lesson plans.

Today, that grassroots effort has matured into a diverse set of programs that continue to break down barriers to arts education across the city. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, Arts @ Large engages more than 8,000 students and community members annually through its inclusive, high-impact arts education experiences.

At the core of this work is a successful artist residency program that places professional artists in schools without art teachers. Arts @ Large provides extensive professional development to artists before they enter the classroom and regularly conducts site visits to ensure lessons align with state educational standards. Beyond the benefits for students who get to participate in the classes, the program provides working artists with a reliable source of income while pursuing their creative endeavors. Since its launch, Arts @ Large has invested more than $7 million into Milwaukee’s local creative economy through direct artist fees. Beyond long-term school residencies, Arts @ Large artist educators also facilitate one-off, project-based initiatives like the student-led creation of murals and innovative initiatives such as digital art courses that teach students the basics of illustration.

A major catalyst for the organization’s growth and evolution came in 2019, when Arts @ Large completed its revitalization of a vacant historic building in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood to serve as its headquarters and an arts-driven community center. Supported by a $1.7 million loan and a $5.7 million New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation from IFF, the transformation of the 11,000-square-foot facility provided Arts @ Large with the high-quality space needed to expand its mission.

“The biggest advantage that moving to our new Community Center gave us was the ability to grow our onsite programs,” says Arts @ Large Executive Director Joel Cencius. “Our prior location was just one large open floor that made it difficult to do anything beyond a traditional gallery show or exhibition. The new building space was intentionally designed with an eye toward other types of programming.”

In addition to gallery and office space, the organization’s new headquarters includes classrooms, space for educator training, and a creative business incubator program for local makers and small businesses like Maria’s Café—a Mexican-inspired coffee shop designed to create community connectivity.

With four times as much space as the organization had in its previous leased location, Arts @ Large began offering a free summer camp, weekend enrichment sessions, creative career internships for local teenagers, and an Artist-in-Residence program that provides artists of all mediums and experience levels in the Milwaukee area with the opportunity to showcase their own art and creative practice. In addition to a stipend, resident artists have access to studio space, professional curation and promotional support, and various opportunities for community engagement and gallery exhibitions. Viewing the facility as a community hub rather than its headquarters alone, Arts @ Large also seized the opportunity to offer affordable rental spaces to local artists, art therapists, and small nonprofits not yet ready for facilities all their own.

Beyond expanding direct service capacity, the nonprofit’s headquarters was designed to break down long-standing barriers to artistic expression by creating an inviting, hands-on environment. By offering a physical location where community members can touch the art and experiment freely, the building acts as an accessible entry point to the arts for people of all backgrounds.

“A lot of times people will not go to the art museum or go to an art gallery or seek out art experiences because they’re like, ‘I’m not an artist,'” notes Cencius. “We want to break down those perceived stereotypical barriers and show that the arts are truly for everyone. We strive every single day to create a safe space where anyone who walks in our doors—of any skill level, experience level, or ability level—can make art and experience art.”

Ensuring long-term access to the arts, however, required Arts @ Large to pivot shortly after opening its new community hub when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Like countless arts and culture organizations across the country, Arts @ Large had to swiftly adapt to its new reality. Rather than continuing to raise money for its capital campaign to pay for its new headquarters, the nonprofit redirected its fundraising efforts to ensure it could keep its doors open and sustain its vital community presence during a period of significant upheaval. This effort was successful, but strict procedural requirements related to the NMTCs the organization used for its building project meant that Arts @ Large needed additional capital last year that hadn’t yet been raised.

To help the nonprofit navigate this hurdle, IFF provided Arts @ Large with a loan of approximately $1.2 million in August 2025. Doing so gave the organization the financial flexibility to continue paying off its building debt over a longer timeframe, offering crucial stability as it celebrates its 25th anniversary and enters a new phase of growth.

“We constantly operate in a very volatile, unstable environment,” says Cencius. “The New Market Tax Credit investment structure and the follow-on loan last year from IFF provided us with stability. And when you have stability, you can actually focus on the future.”

With its newfound stability and waitlists for all of the programs offered at the organization’s headquarters, Arts @ Large is now looking to continue growing its impact. Having built a deep relationship with Milwaukee Public Schools in its first 25 years, Arts @ Large is actively seeking to expand partnerships with youth-serving nonprofits like the Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters to broaden access to arts education by embedding its programming in both organizations’ work. At the same time, Arts @ Large is scaling its brand-new Mobile Media Lab to make digital arts education accessible anywhere. By bringing portable tech tools directly into neighborhoods across Milwaukee, Arts @ Large will meet students where they are with hands-on instruction in digital illustration, videography, podcasting, and music production.

“We believe wholeheartedly that there’s an artist in each of us and that all of us have creative ability,” says Cencius. “As we look to our next chapter, our focus is on building stronger alliances across the city so we can ensure every student has access to the transformative power of arts education.”