About Us

Staff List

Martha Richards is the Founder and Executive Director of The Fund for Women Artists.  Richards has over thirty years of experience as an arts administrator, including nine years at Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College (three years as Executive Director), and five years as the Managing Director at StageWest in Springfield, Massachusetts (1989-93).  She lectures frequently on arts issues, and she taught a theatre management course at Mount Holyoke College in fall 1994. Richards served on the National Endowment for the Arts panel for Theatre Creation and Presentation in July 2000.

       Richards has had a life-long commitment to women's issues and women artists, and she has served as a business advisor to many individual women artists and women-led arts organizations throughout her career. Richards attended the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995.  She was a founding director of the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts and served on its board from 1997 to 2000.  The Pioneer Valley Girl Scouts honored her as a 1999 Woman of Distinction.

       Richards has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California Berkeley and a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of Law.  She is a member of the California bar, and she was one of the founding directors of California Lawyers for the Arts, serving as its Vice President from 1976-1978.  In 1979 she was one of seven fellows selected nationwide by Theatre Communications Group for a National Fellowship in Performing Arts Management .  As a National Fellow she served as the assistant to Managing Director Peter Culman at Baltimore's Center Stage.

Carrie Grabo is the Online Services Associate for The Fund for Women Artists. She is responsible for editing the WomenArts Network profiles, as well as writing and editing other on-line content and the bimonthly funding newsletters. She holds an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and has over 10 years experience as a freelance editor and writer. Her clients have included The American Journal of Art Therapy, Write.Net, The American Forum, Norwich University, and George Mason University. She has worked in an administrative capacity at Goddard College, National Life Insurance Company, and the National Association of the Deaf. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and on-line at Poetry Daily.