For
over two decades, Mary Berryman Agard has consulted in cultural and strategic planning, foundation management, civic dialog,
donor advising, and non-profit management. Her recent projects include advising in the redesign of a major local public arts
agency, organizational development, communications management, conducting community cultural plans, facilitating a national
coalition, and assisting in the redesign of a national foundation. Her work has addressed a variety of topics including arts
and culture, sustainable agriculture, verified voting systems, social and economic justice, and education. Mary's clients
include government agencies, non-profits, individuals, foundations, businesses, and educational institutions.
Before working as a consultant, Mary helped found a preschool focusing on the arts, worked as an actor in an educational
theatre company, directed productions for a youth theatre, and founded and managed the nation’s first system of municipal
support for childcare centers. She worked as both a Community Arts Development Officer and the Director of Programs for a
state arts agency.
Her long history of community involvement includes community organizing
and volunteer work in both public and alternativel schools, political campaigns, environmental organizations, local artists'
cooperatives and arts organizations, childcare programs, food pantry programs, and neighborhood organizations. She is the
former Chair of the Madison CitiArts Commission (now the Madison Arts Commission), a former Police and Fire Commissioner,
and has served on a number of boards. She currently sits on a city-university liaison committee and is an advisor to a community
garden. She is the proprietor of Mary Berryman Agard & Associates, formerly Hyperion Associates.
Mary
lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her large extended family. Her personal activities include reading, writing, costume design,
canine agility, and mosaic sculpture. She is deeply grateful for her family, her garden, the man who taught her to read,
and the blues.
Selected Reports and Publications
Wildfire: BAM's Middle School Initiative- a Plan for Serving Middle School Students at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music
The Park Street T with Paul Soglin
Madison
Cultural Plan
Wisconsin's
Children and Our Common Prosperity
Tried, True, and Protean with Jane Ahlstrom
Culture at the Edges with Robert Bush
The MBA Board Self-Assessment Instrument
Public Support for Emerging Arts
Next Generation Now
Child Welfare Practice in Wisconsin: A Users Guide
A Management Audit Instrument for Not-for-Profit Organizations
50 Cities: Local Government and the
Arts with June Spencer
A
Municipal Perspective: Surplus School Space with Hal Levy
To read from a sample of Mary Berryman Agard & Associates
recent reports, choose the page titled Samples of Our Work from the menu bar to the right.