Maren Brown

Principal

Maren Brown retired from active consulting in 2025 and now focuses her professional efforts on her studio practice as an abstract painter. This website is maintained as an archive of her consulting, writing, and arts leadership work.  Please visit her painting website at marenbrownart.com for more information.

Brown worked with a variety of clients nationwide on their arts management consulting and training needs.  She consulted on strategic plans and evaluations for a variety of state and regional arts agencies, including the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Mid America Arts Alliance, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Delaware Division of the Arts, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, New England Foundation for the Arts, and Vermont Arts Council. She also worked extensively with state and regional arts agencies, national service organizations and foundations to meet their consulting and training needs, including the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Barr Foundation, Western States Arts Federation, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Americans for the Arts, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (National Arts Partnerships Program), Illinois Arts Council, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Arkansas Arts Council, Wisconsin Arts Board, Connecticut Office of the Arts, California Arts Council, Washington State Arts Division, and Tennessee Arts Commission, among others.

Brown is the co-founder of the National Arts Policy Archive and Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is responsible for securing collections from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and Americans for the Arts, among others.  She co-founded the arts management degree program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in collaboration with the University Without Walls, which is the only degree program in the nation that focuses on adult learners who wish to obtain a bachelor’s degree in arts management.  Brown developed and taught courses in arts programming, financial management, arts marketing, and introduction to arts management.

Brown is the co-editor of the 5th and 6th editions of the foundational text, Fundamentals of Arts Management, used in 45% of the arts management degree programs in the nation, and is the co-author of the working paper, Leveraging Change: Increasing Access to Arts Education in Rural Areas, and two workbooks on partnership development in the arts, Partners in Creative Economy Planning and Re-imagining Resources Through Partnership Development.  She has delivered numerous training programs around the nation for arts management practitioners in subjects ranging from strategic planning to program evaluation, and has also taught business skills to artists of all disciplines.