advisarts associates

In order to respond to the unique needs of each client we assemble project teams to ensure a customized and dynamic approach for every project. We draw on a pool of individuals who bring extensive skills, depth of experience in a variety of disciplines, and shared enthusiasm for our work.

AdvisArts Associates expertise encompasses:

Annette de Soto

After several years in academia at the University of Chicago, Annette joined the ranks of the non-profit sector where she has provided management, program evaluation and strategic planning counsel to a wide variety of arts, education, environmental, political advocacy and social service organizations. Her clients include the US Fund for UNICEF, the Children’s Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation, as well as grassroots and community based organizations. She has helped develop record-breaking major donor fundraising efforts for organizations including Meany Hall for the Performing Arts, PBS and a host of other worthy concerns. When not with clients, Annette splits her time between building an Outsider Art collection and hiking.

Marc Goldring

Marc Goldring has been engaged with community cultural planning for over three decades, working with communities from coast to coast and assisting public and private entities find mutual ground to strategically advance their community. Through his national consulting practice, Marc has worked with a myriad of clients, small and large, providing planning and research for projects including feasibility studies for program and institutional growth. A Fulbright Award-winning craftsperson, Marc’s work has been displayed in galleries and museums nationwide. He was Executive Director of the National Crafts Planning Board, and has curated exhibitions and organized international conferences. Marc has served on grants review panels for state and local arts agencies and is a presenter at national, regional and state conferences. In addition to his consulting work, Marc is an avid photographer, showing and selling his current images online and at galleries and shows in the Boston area, where he makes his home.

Katy Hannigan

Katy Hannigan is an always curious entrepreneur, numbers nerd, and fervent supporter of artists and small arts organizations. A 2017 graduate from the Seattle University MFA in Arts Leadership program, she founded Thread Support in 2018, which provides financial support and strategy, business consulting, strategic program support, and more to nonprofits and creative businesses. With experience organizing finances for small art organizations, complex program and project management, interest in research consulting, and a love of all things data, she is well-versed in the complexities of making a creative business work.Katy has collaborated with AdvisArts to support research for the CERF+ Artist Readiness Project and the Performing Arts Readiness Sustainability Project.

Susan Kunimatsu

Susan Kunimatsu has worked in Seattle’s arts and cultural communities for over thirty years as a writer, editor and project manager. She is a contributing writer for the International Examiner, Seattle’s pan-Asian community newspaper and case study editor for the Arts Ecosystem Research Project based at Seattle University. Her writing and photography have appeared in Fiberarts and Ornament magazines and Grantmakers in the Arts’ GIA Reader. She has a Masters degree in Architecture from the University of Michigan and has held municipal government posts in arts grantmaking and historic preservation.

Anna Rebecca (AR) Lopez

Anna Rebecca (AR) is an evaluator, community organizer, and relationship-builder with nearly ten years in the cultural and informal learning sector. They have a Masters degree in Museology from the University of Washington and have experience working with grassroots collaborations, small community-led organizations, and large museums. They are a founding member of Community-Centric Fundraising, an organizer with Duwamish Solidarity Group, and holds a leadership position with the Seattle Evaluation Association. Anna Rebecca has a passion for helping organizations understand complex issues and inform decision-making with data, with the intent to influence social and just change.

Casey Moser

Casey has worked with a diverse array of arts and cultural organizations in Washington State and on the East Coast, including AdvisArts, Shunpike, Artists Up, ArtsFund, ArtsEd Washington, the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4Culture, the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI), the Robert Chinn Foundation, Atlantic Theater Company, McCarter Theatre Center, Americans for the Arts, and Muhlenberg Theatre & Dance. She combines her strong data management, research, and project management skills with a broad understanding of the arts sector and the needs of artists. Casey holds a BA in Arts Administration and Sociology from Muhlenberg College and an MPA from the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Originally from the New Orleans area, in her spare time she enjoys running, biking, baking, and exploring the Seattle arts scene.

Catherine Nueva España

Catherine Nueva España is a consultant and facilitator with experience in arts, design, and other creative practices. She helps leaders and creatives recognize their personal values, develop their professional skills and create a practice of sustaining joyful collaborations with others. She was most recently the interim executive director at On the Boards and EarthCorps, executive director at Velocity Dance Center, and a board member at the Khambatta Dance Company. Her arts advocacy work includes serving as a board commissioner for ArtsWA (36th legislative district) and 4Culture (District 4). She brings 20+ years’ experience in project management; stakeholder surveys and interviews; meeting and workshop facilitation; working with organizations to improve internal processes; staff professional development; and, board recruitment and stewardship.

Vivian Phillips

A veteran arts administrator and communications professional, Vivian is the co-founding managing director of The Hansberry Project at ACT Theatre. She has served as Executive Manager of the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, worked for the Seattle Theatre Group (STG) and she continues to represent STG to the national African Contemporary Arts Consortium. Vivian has produced original work for Seattle stages and has performed in several productions and serves as producer and host for award-winning television programs. She has worked with numerous local and national organizations as a public relations and marketing consultant and served as Director of Communications for Seattle Mayor Paul Schell. Vivian is sought after as a vibrant speaker and as an insightful advisor to numerous arts, communications and civic boards.

Amanda Smart

Amanda Smart is a researcher, information designer, and map-maker with a background in international development research, and urban planning. Amanda has provided project management, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, research, and design support to a variety of policy and arts and culture organizations, from Argentina to New York. Her work for AdvisArts includes survey design, management and analysis, GIS-based analysis and mapping, as well as design services. Amanda is passionate about the clear and attractive presentation of rigorous analysis in order to better help organizations and communities understand the challenges and opportunities facing them. She holds an MA from The New School, New York, and a B.A. from Barnard College.

Ellen Sollod

Ellen Sollod is an artist, arts planner and art facilitator with expertise that spans public art, art master planning, cultural facility development, long range planning and organizational development. Crossing disciplines, she builds relationships with public officials, design professionals, artists and citizens to foster art in civic engagement. As a public artist, she has collaborated in the creation of dynamic places in which art is fully integrated. As an arts planner she has conducted public visioning processes at the federal, state and local levels, formulated plans for arts facilities, developed art master plans for large scale infrastructure projects, and worked with dance companies, media, folk arts, visual arts and multidisciplinary arts organizations to advance their missions. She served as the Executive Director of the Seattle Arts Commission and the Colorado Council on the Arts and was Assistant Director of the Dance Program for the National Endowment for the Arts. Recent clients include 4Culture, Fort Worden State Park, and the City of San Jose. Her public artworks are included in cities through the northwest and California.

Shannon Stewart

Shannon Stewart is a multi-disciplinary dance artist, educator, and consultant based in New Orleans. Shannon has performed throughout the United States and internationally in Germany, Austria, Hungary, the UK, and Canada. She has participated in dozens of dance projects for stage, film, music videos and galleries as a performer and choreographer. Concurrently, she co-founded two youth arts nonprofits: Vera Project in Seattle and the national All-ages Movement Project. Out of this work she published In Every Town: an all-ages music manualfesto, a resource for underground cultural spaces in the US. She has contributed to AdvisArts research projects for the National Performance Network, a Wallace Foundation initiative on arts participation with the Washington State Arts Commission, and NCAPER. Shannon has been an invited presenter at national and international conferences and her writing has been featured in Publicola, Wiretap, and The Nation. She curates the cross-continental, peer-supported dance initiative FUTURE OCEANS as well as the improvisational series BE / WITH, is a core mentor for ROAR Berlin, and a member of the Front Gallery in New Orleans. She has a Masters of Fine Arts from Tulane University in Interdisciplinary Dance Performance and a double degree in Business Administration and Urban Design from the University of Washington.

Andrea Wagner

Andrea Wagner was the first hired employee and became Executive Director of Seattle’s internationally renowned contemporary performing arts center On the Boards. Her broad experience in nonprofit management has included serving as interim director of the Washington State Arts Alliance, and as Executive Director of Giant Magnet, formerly known as the Seattle International Children’s Festival, where she oversaw annual presentations of artists from around the globe to an audience of over 35,000 children, their teachers, and families and established a new works commissioning program, a satellite festival, forged international collaborations, and an expansion of state-wide teacher education and in-school residency programs. Her expertise includes financial management and fund-development, with a strong commitment to collaborations with community, culturally specific, and international organizations. Andrea has served on numerous funding panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, 4Culture and other granting agencies, and was a founding board member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the National Performance Network.