Chris Begley

Chris Begley, Senior Vice President, has spent her career advancing prestigious arts institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Academy in Rome. She is currently Senior Advisor to the Director at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. Chris joined GG+A to bring her deep experience to a wide variety of arts and culture and higher education clients.

Chris enjoys collaborating with clients to find solutions to their biggest challenges. She brings particular expertise in program analysis, strategic planning and positioning, identifying opportunities and strategies for growth in fundraising, and program creation. She also works with her clients to develop communications that position them for success with donors. Her work includes institutional visioning and strategic priority setting; developing white papers, proposals, and gift propositions; and crafting inspirational messaging for case statements and annual appeals.

Before joining GG+A, Chris spent three years as the Vice President of Development at the American Academy in Rome, where she oversaw all aspects of fundraising in the United States and Italy. Prior to this role, Chris enjoyed a 17-year career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Throughout her time there, Chris was responsible for writing materials on diverse issues for the Museum, including four case statements and public responses to critical events. As Senior Deputy Chief Development Officer for Government and Foundation Giving, she provided strategic vision, leadership, and coordination for all fundraising efforts and managed over $20 million in grants annually. She also spent time as Senior Development Officer for Individual Giving and Departmental Communications, managing both staff and major gift prospects and developing all campaign fundraising materials for the Museum’s $900 million capital campaign.

While at the Metropolitan, Chris developed new fundraising initiatives; collaborated with staff throughout the Museum on the analysis of education, conservation, and technology programs; and created the framework for such major initiatives as the Global Museum Leaders Colloquium and the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art. In 2003, Chris provided research assistance to curator Carmen C. Bambach for the Metropolitan Museum exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman.” Chris was a co-curator of the 1999 exhibition “Guilio Romano, Master Designer,” held at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Chris remains active in the museum field. She recently authored the updated guidelines on fundraising for the Association of Art Museum Curators Handbook and is a member of the American Alliance of Museums and ArtTable.

Chris holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Syracuse University, where she studied Italian Renaissance Art. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin with an additional year of independent study at the University of Rome.

Clients:

• American Film Institute
• American Symphony Orchestra League
• California Academy of Sciences
• Charleston Library Society
• Da Vinci Science Center
• Emory University
• Englewood Health
• ESADE
• Fourth Presbyterian Church
• Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
• Hudson River Museum
• Hunter College Foundation
• Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
• IE University
• IESE Business School
• J. Paul Getty Trust
• Japanese American National Museum
• Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Foundation at Stanford University
• Lyric Opera of Chicago
• MAG America
• Milwaukee Art Museum
• Montclair State University
• Mount Allison University
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
• New York Botanical Gardens
• Oakland Museum of California
• Philadelphia Ballet
• Smithsonian institution
• Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
• Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
• Symphony Space
• Taos Art Museum
• Tate
• University of Alaska Anchorage
• WAMU American University Radio
• Westtown School
• Yeshiva University