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For many years, Susan Gonsalves has been sharing and supporting her love of the arts. A native Rhode Islander, she began taking piano lessons at age seven. Later, Susan would help with costumes for theater productions at Cumberland High School and design scenery for the Pfizer Players, her employer’s community theater group. Just recently, she performed in a ballroom dancing showcase, demonstrating that she is both an active funder and an active participant in the arts community.  

Susan has recently focused her philanthropy on smaller, more diverse theaters doing innovative work. Through her donor advised fund at the Rhode Island Foundation, Susan has helped local organizations with limited resources, such as The Manton Avenue Project and The Wilbury Theatre Group, turn creative and financial challenges into opportunities.  

As a child, Susan watched her father build a successful business from scratch and came to recognize and appreciate the hard work involved. “Choosing the creative work, getting the right people with a small budget, finding a way to tell a fresh, new, story, to produce something that the public is willing to see…I have great respect for that.”  

With grant funding for the arts often viewed as less of a priority given the level of need in these difficult times, support like Susan’s has become more essential for the arts community. “The arts allow us the ability to see life from another perspective; it enriches your life,” Susan explains. “So much of what you do in life is the same thing, but being part of the artistic experience liberates and stretches your mind, helps you to understand the human experience, to create something that flows and makes sense…to put the pieces together to make a coherent whole.” 

Discovering lesser-known theaters and arts organizations that aligned with Susan’s philanthropic goals was its own challenge, and that is where her collaboration with the Foundation continues to be invaluable.  

The Foundation’s long-term presence and relationships in the community, accumulated knowledge, and resources allow it the ability to ‘kick the tires’ of an organization - understanding how it’s managed, what makes it successful, and how funding is being used - as well as its awareness of current needs - connects funding partners with projects that match their passions.  “I have had a very positive experience in terms of collaboration,” says Susan, describing her working relationship with the Foundation. “I would never have found these organizations and projects myself. How would I know? How could I vet them? Sometimes you just fall into things, but there are so many, how could I find these?”  

With the majority of Susan’s support coming at the recommendation of the Foundation, she is also considering her future giving goals, incorporating the health and education sectors into her philanthropy, and using the Foundation team as a guide to giving at their intersection - assisting her with ‘putting the pieces together.’  

Susan concludes, “It’s easy to be dazzled by a presentation or proposal, but the Foundation is able to look in depth at what’s going on behind the scenes…an organization’s history, books, progress, outcomes…if you give, what will be the result.”