Madeline Shearer, Associate Director of Institutional Philanthropy

This is one of the things that makes working with her so fun. She’s among the first people I met when I started leading and designing programs here at the Art Institute, and I’ve learned a ton from her over the years—from how to produce memorable events for hundreds of college students to how to laugh under pressure. I’m still learning from Maddie, and she still makes me laugh. 

Sam Ramos: Maddie, it’s so nice to be chatting with you. 

Madeline Shearer: Thanks for doing this with me.

Sam: Of course. So, how did you get your start in philanthropy? 

Maddie: It happened in college—at Loyola, here in Chicago. I got a student job working the Annual Fund phonathon when I was a freshman. That’s where students call alumni to ask for donations for scholarships and talk with them about their experiences at the school.

Sam: Did you already have an interest in fundraising?

Maddie: Actually, when I started that job, I just needed weekend money. But I found that I genuinely loved connecting with alumni and hearing their stories. 

Sam: You’re so social; that doesn’t surprise me. But was it ever hard to ask for contributions?

Maddie: No. It made perfect sense to me that I would be asking, because I was a scholarship student myself. So it never made me nervous. By my senior year, I was managing that team and running the whole show! I knew it was what I should be doing when I graduated. And because mission-based work is important to me, I also knew I wanted to work for a nonprofit. Growing up I was so interested in the arts. All of my friends were artists or musicians, though I’m not really artistically inclined.

Sam: Did you ever try out an artistic practice? 

Maddie: I wrote creative fiction and poetry, so I dabbled. I was the editor of our arts journal in high school. It was called Inkblots.

Sam: Nice. That’s a good title. It’s cool that you were writing. I didn’t know that.

Maddie: Yeah, but pretty quickly I realized I was more interested in supporting the arts. I would always go to my friends’ openings or be at their shows. I was their number-one fan. 

After college I applied to a bunch of internships at different arts organizations, and I landed at the Gene Siskel Film Center, part of the School of the Art Institute. I learned so much in just a short time, and through that internship I made connections with people at the museum. I started working in an entry-level role here in the Philanthropy department later that summer. That was 11 years ago!

Sam: Congratulations. That all sounds pretty seamless, actually.

Maddie: It worked out. It was probably a mix of starting as a young person—having that naive tenacity to just go for it and not really having a fear of being embarrassed yet—and also the generosity of my boss, George Martin, who is still my boss today. He believed in me back then and saw that I was passionate about fundraising even as a 21-year-old kid.

Sam: Well, you were good at it. A lot of what you do is about being able to connect in a real way in a short amount of time. 

Maddie: Thank you for saying that. I think it just comes naturally to me. 

Sam: So after 11 years, how would you describe the work the Philanthropy team does here?

Maddie: We work to build and facilitate relationships with the museum’s donors and institutional partners, bringing them into the life of the museum and familiarizing them with our collection and our exhibitions, education programs, conservation projects—all kinds of initiatives. And then we find avenues for aligning their particular interests with the museum’s work. We also provide private tours and events as a way to thank them for being such important partners and to deepen their connection with us.

My immediate team works with institutions—mostly foundations, companies, and universities. I work particularly closely with companies that make annual gifts to the museum or sponsor special exhibitions. I also do a fair bit of grant writing and work with corporate foundations. And I head up the University Partner Program, an annual membership program for colleges across Chicago that offers students free admission and other special engagement opportunities.

I like to say that my main job is to strengthen the bridge between the museum and both the business and academic communities. Building these connections isn’t just about getting the support the museum needs to thrive; it’s about building a stronger community—a stronger Chicago.

Sam: What specific projects are you working on right now? 

Maddie: There’s a lot. At the moment I’m developing a tour on women artists in the collection for a Women in STEM employee resource group at one of our partnering companies. And I’m deep into planning University Partner Fest, which happens every year in mid-February. That of course evolved from an event that you and I helped create years ago, back when you were—what was your title then?

Sam: Assistant director of college and professional learning. This was back in 2017, I think.

Maddie: Yeah.

Sam: I was new to museums, and I had just been handed a list of projects to tackle and new people to meet, and you were one of those people. We talked about developing new programming for college students, and one of those events became University Partner Fest.

Maddie: Right. University Partner Fest is a day for students, staff, and faculty from all of our University Partner institutions to come to the museum and share their love of art. We have student-led art talks, a museum career panel, art-making activities, faculty-led gallery activations, and a big reception at the end where students can meet with staff from our HR department to learn about employment opportunities. I’m so grateful to all of my colleagues who help plan it and participate each year. 

Sam: It’s really a museum-wide effort. So, what about museums excites you? Did you visit them a lot growing up?  

Maddie: I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and my dad was a big museum guy—like, all kinds of museums. We went to the Dayton Art Institute a lot. I went there all the time in high school with my friends, too. We would just go and walk around the campus. 

There was this one painting, a folk art painting of a baby girl wearing a red dress, and my parents would always say to me, “That’s exactly how you looked as a baby.” Every time I would go, I’d have to find her and see her again.

Sam: It’s nice to do that—revisit works and think about your history with them. I started visiting the Art Institute when I came here to go to SAIC, and there’s still stuff on view that I remember looking at my first semester.

Maddie: I was trying to remember my first Art Institute experience. I visited Chicago with my parents to look at universities. I’m so sure we took a photo in front of the lions, but it seems to have been lost to time.

Sam: I first learned about this museum in my high school art history class, and soon after that, I visited the city and made a point of stopping here. And I think because of that trip, when I was ready to go to college, I knew that this was where I wanted to be.

Maddie: It’s so important, when you’re learning and thinking about what you want to do in life, to have those kinds of formative experiences. That’s a large part of why I’m so happy to be developing relationships with the academic community and working here in Philanthropy in general. When we raise money for bus funds and bring in students who may never have been to the Art Institute before, it’s always so exciting. Who knows what they’ll discover?

Sam: Speaking of which, do you have a favorite Art Institute artwork?

Maddie: I don’t think I can pinpoint a favorite work. I think it changes a lot. But my favorite right now is a boar-shaped flask in the ancient Byzantine galleries that’s on loan to us from a private collection. It’s so adorable. It’s just this little pig, and I literally say hello to him every morning.

Sam: Like out loud?

Maddie: Yeah. He’s from mid-4th century BC, which makes him over 2,000 years old. He just makes me feel so—

Sam: Young?

Maddie: Yes, very young! But also happy. I figure someone from that long ago probably also loved this little pig.

Sam: I’ve been thinking more recently about how in the course of human history, the time between even those things that seem quite old and us is really just a blink. These ancient objects are our temporal neighbors. I’m sure that if I could talk with somebody from that period, if we shared the same language, a lot of the things we’d talk about would actually be pretty relatable. 

Maddie: Yeah. That’s part of why I love museums and the work I get to do here. When you can come to a place like this and see yourself in the history of an object, it helps you relate to yourself and to other people, to your community, to people from the past. It makes you feel like you’re not alone—like we’re all part of something greater.

—Madeline Shearer, associate director of Institutional Philanthropy, and Sam Ramos, director of Gallery Activation

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