Milwaukee Artist Resource Network Faces Financial Cliff

Interval, 191 N. Broadway. Photo by Sophie Bolich.

The Milwaukee Artist Resource Network was once the Little Train That Could.

As recently as 2018, the nonprofit most know as MARN had a modest budget of just over $144,000, shared office space and a largely volunteer staff and showed a surplus of about $12,000 for the year while offering valued services. MARN ran a widely-praised mentoring program that matched veteran artists with younger up-and-comers, brought in national and international artists, curators and critics for artistic salons it ran and offered professional development workshops on marketing, bookkeeping and legal issues for artists.

Then, in July 2019 it got an incredible windfall: a $3 million grant from Anonymous Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. “The whole arts community was shocked by the size of this grant for such a small group,” says a gallery owner in town.

Sources close to MARN say the money came from a wealthy woman philanthropist in Milwaukee who admired the group. Urban Milwaukee interviewed former staff and board members and obtained letters that ex-employees sent to the board while reporting this story.

Pamela Anderson, a longtime board member and board chair saluted the grant in press release, saying “This is exactly what I’ve always imagined MARN could be…  This gives us the ability to expand programming and services to our diverse range of artists.”

The grant was given to underwrite operating expenses over a 10-year period, meaning the group (with interest earned on the money) would be using around $325,000 per year. It meant a huge increase in the group’s annual budget. “The organization is currently looking at several potential locations to accommodate a center that will include a modern art gallery, event space, and a retail store front,” the press release noted.

MARN moved into a space at 191 N. Broadway in the Third Ward and signed a 10-year lease. This was overseen by its President and CEO Mal Montoya, a board member who was quietly elevated to its full-time leader at an annual salary of $72,000 after the big grant was received.

Montoya had big plans for the new headquarters. It was unveiled in February 2021 with a press release describing a 5,500-square-foot complex that “features MARN’s own café, conference center, innovation studio and Gallery and Exhibition Hall,” equipped with 10-foot-high modular walls, a large projection screen, sound system and high-tech lighting, “lending itself to a transformative space fit to host a variety of innovative exhibitions, panel discussions, performances, events and more.”

Montoya was soon giving a tour on Facebook of the “remarkable” center and was interviewed on Channel 10 touting its many features. But those features cost a lot and required more staff. By 2021 MARN’s budget was nearly $850,000, nearly six times higher than before getting its big grant, according to the group’s annual federal tax forms.

At the rate it was spending money its 10-year grant would last nowhere near that long. So someone from MARN approached the philanthropist and convinced her to give another $1 million to the group. Meanwhile Montoya continued to run up way more annual expenses than revenue, with deficits of some $737,000 in 2021, $647,000 in 2022 and $937,000 in 2023, according to its tax forms. By 2023 nearly all of the $4 million from the philanthropist was gone, with just under $560,000 in savings and investments left. At the rate it has been going, it probably spent most of that in 2024.

Montoya, said MARN’s former head of cafe operations Cecilia Rodriguez in a letter to the board, was constantly trying and then abandoning various ideas, resulting in a loss of money. “Her whiplash of ideas has detrimentally effected the revenue opportunities that would successfully move MARN into a competitive position with other thriving Third Ward businesses,” she wrote. “There has been a wine rack, bodega, a theatre, retail — the list goes on…The ideas that have been demanded to materialize with no consistency, costs man-hours and money.”

Interval had been brought in to run the MARN cafe, but sources say owner Ryan Hoban couldn’t get along with Montoya. In March 2023 it was announced that Interval was leaving the MARN operation to start a cafe in Bay View. Neither Hoban nor Montoya would comment on this in the story by Urban Milwaukee reporter Sophie Bolich.

But a month later Montoya announced the cafe had reopened and MARN would run it. “With the reopening of our café, we’ve literally doubled the size of our staff, most of which are local artists,” Montoya declared. In fact, MARN’s cost for salaries rose from about $243,000 in 2022 to nearly $420,000 in 2023. Meanwhile its annual lease was more than $196,000.

But even as more staff were hired, more were needed, due to tremendous staff turnover. Alayna N. Pernell, who served as MARN’s program director until May 2024, wrote a letter of resignation to the board estimating that “nearly 30 employees that have come and gone in the time I’ve been here since February 2023 with now 4 remaining.”

Rodriguez, who worked for MARN for six months beginning in September 2023, said she was told that “prior to my arrival there were 10 events coordinators.” All told “there were 22 employees when I arrived and I believe there are only 3 remaining,” she wrote in her letter. “That would mean your employee retention rate in 6 months is only 13%.”

Both letters described the workplace culture at MARN as “toxic” under Montoya. Others interviewed by Urban Milwaukee used similar terms, while charging that mismanagement by Montoya went on for years. Longtime board chair Pamela Anderson also had problems with Montoya, some observers say, and resigned in March 2023.

In June 30, 2024, Montoya resigned from the job — pushed out by the board, sources say. In August Anderson was asked to return to the board and she now serves again as board chair. In late October a new President and CEO, Joe Hausch was hired.

When asked to comment Anderson noted that MARN “does not comment on the employment status or performance of former employees,” and cited the COVID-19 pandemic and low funding by the Wisconsin Arts Board as having a financial impact. “Despite these challenges,” she said MARN is working on “enhancing artist mentorship opportunities, strengthening fundraising efforts, launching new programming initiatives, with exciting announcements to come,” and “working closely with Spectrum Nonprofit Services to identify strategic opportunities to ensure MARN’s long-term sustainability.”

“For 25 years, MARN has been a vital part of Milwaukee’s creative community,” she added. “As we move forward, we remain dedicated to fostering a thriving, resilient arts ecosystem and continuing to support artists across Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin.”