Consultant
Mark
Hernandez is committed
to ensuring that the arts, in all of their wonderful
variety, survive and thrive. Toward that end, he has worked
since 1999 on a freelance basis for non-profit arts
providers, individual artists, and grantmakers.
With experience spanning fundraising, marketing, and
programming, Mr. Hernandez is uniquely qualified for a
range of tasks, from content creation and research to
planning and analysis. In addition, his comprehensive
knowledge of both the grantseeker and grantmaker worlds,
combined with his active career as a performer, has given
him an unusually sweeping perspective of what it takes to
achieve meaningful results.
Mr. Hernandez has managed discrete assignments; jumped in
at the last minute to help complete or fix projects; and
worked on an interim basis for weeks or months, providing
stability to organizations while they look for long-term
solutions. His client list includes San Francisco's "Big
Three" (Opera, Symphony, Ballet), California Shakespeare
Theater, and the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, to name a
few. In recent years, Mr. Hernandez has been increasingly
active as a teaching-artist, leading and creating
programming that helps young people to understand and get
excited by opera and performance.
It was through his work with arts providers that Mr.
Hernandez first came to the attention of the grantmaker
community. He has been engaged by a number of granting
agencies, including private foundations, to provide
subjective analysis of artistic work, objective evaluation
of institutional capacity, opinions on issues facing the
field, and funding recommendations.
Mr. Hernandez received Bachelors and Master of Music
degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. From
1992 to 2000 he worked for San Francisco Opera, four of
those years as Development Staff Writer.