For over three decades, Anne Bergeron (she/her/hers) has utilized her skills in planning, organizational development, fundraising, financial management, and strategic communications to advance the fields of nonprofit arts, museums, and historic preservation. She is a respected consultant and arts executive known for writing and lecturing on leadership, ethics, philanthropy, and engagement.
Specializing in the business and “people” aspects of the arts, Anne is drawn to artist-centric organizations that are in transition or growth mode, including start-ups. She currently leads her eponymously named consulting firm serving cultural nonprofits across the country. Previously, she served for five years as interim deputy director collaboratively guiding the development of Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, a new art museum at the University of California, Irvine. Before that, she was managing director at Brown University’s Arts Initiative, where she co-led the integration of eight arts departments and two arts programs to enhance the university’s reputation for experimental, interdisciplinary artmaking and research, and worked closely with the design team on developing its new $200 million performing arts facility. Prior to this, she was associate director of external affairs at the Dallas Museum of Art, where she led over 170 staff in eight public facing departments to increase revenue, public and media awareness, visitorship, and stakeholder engagement; director of institutional and capital development at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, where she secured landmark status for its historic Frank Lloyd Wright building and multi-million funding towards its restoration and programs; and associate executive director of the National Writer’s Voice Project, where she oversaw the national expansion of a local literary arts program. Anne teaches at The Fund Raising School of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University; she previously taught at Bank Street College of Education, among other academic institutions.
Anne attended Trinity College on a mathematics scholarship and earned a B.A. in English Literature. She received an executive certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership, where she served as visiting practitioner in 2010-12. In 2024, she earned a master’s degree in philanthropic studies from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.
With Eugene Tempel, EdD, the Lilly School’s inaugural dean, Anne co-authored a chapter on ethical fundraising in the fifth edition of Achieving Excellence in Fundraising (Wiley, 2022). Stanford Social Innovation Review (2024) subsequently published an article based on her master’s thesis exploring the ethics of naming rights for public sector buildings. She is also co-author of Magnetic: The Art and Science of Engagement (AAM Press, 2013), a bestselling study of the traits and practices of high-performance museums.
Anne serves as secretary of the board of American Friends of Art-Ex, an international artistic exchange program between the US and Todi, Italy; and is an advisory board member of Performa, the leading organization for visual art performance.