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The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is in dire need of ready funds to retain and support staff at this moment of severe earned-revenue losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the e-mail below, the Brooks’s  director, Emily Neff, requests an emergency grant of $75,000 to directly support salaries of of key staff required to maintain basic operations across the museum through the period of its closure. With this email, I wholeheartedly recommend approval of the proposed emergency grant. The funds would be drawn from the American Art Program’s 2020 allocation.
 
The Memphis Brooks is a vital organization in a city that is suffering from rapidly-rising poverty and crime rates. Since beginning her tenure several years ago, Neff has dedicated her energies to making the museum more actively attentive to the city’s under-resourced communities. This is the aim of her exciting master plan to move the museum from its current park-like setting to the heart of downtown Memphis.  
 
The Foundation’s support of the Memphis Brooks’s talented and highly committed staff at this unprecedented moment, through this emergency grant, is a rapid and effective way to assist them in keeping their staff whole and active through these months of unprecedented challenges to the museum sector.