Partners

Villa Albertine is an institution of the French Embassy in the United States, supported by the French government and Albertine Foundation. Villa Albertine’s mission is to strengthen ties between the United States, France and the French- speaking world through culture and education. In the arts and culture sphere, we encourage collaboration among French and US-based organizations and provide creators, thought leaders, and professionals with customized residencies, immersive networking experiences, grants, and connections to audiences so they can explore and share new insights into society’s pressing issues.

In the field of education, we craft projects and programs aimed at making French language and culture accessible to young US-based audiences, expand opportunities for students to study and complete internships in France, and support partnerships between French and American higher education and research institutions. Villa Albertine is present in 10 major US cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. It is headquartered in New York’s historic Payne Whitney mansion, home to Albertine, our bookshop and nexus for French- American intellectual exchange. Follow Villa Albertine on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. villa-albertine.org

Follow Villa Albertine on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.    

Duke Ellington School of the Arts (DESA) was established in 1974 by two trailblazing African-American artists and activists, Peggy Cooper-Cafritz and Mike Malone. Their vision was to provide equitable access to a life-changing arts education for the District’s talented youth, regardless of background or ability to pay.

​To this day, DESA is the only public high school in DC to offer a dual curriculum integrating college-preparatory academics with pre-professional arts training in Dance, Instrumental Music, Cinematic Arts & Media Production, Museum Studies, Technical, Design & Production, Theatre, Visual Arts, and Vocal Music.

​Nearly 50 years later, Ellington continues to nurture the next generation of scholar-artists and changemakers. Learn more about it here.

The University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy is dedicated to a future in which democracy’s aspirations and reality are aligned.

The institute works tirelessly to understand, defend, and invigorate the institutions, practices, and cultural underpinnings that are the foundations of democracy. Through all its work—robust interdisciplinary scholarship, research and teaching, and vibrant programs and partnerships designed to engage the public and influence policy agendas—the Karsh Institute is shaping a thriving democratic future.

The Karsh Institute, which includes UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service and Equity Center, collaborates closely with schools and centers across UVA that also work to advance democracy, including the Center for Politics, the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy at the School of Law, and the Miller Center of Public Affairs. Learn more about it here.

Albertine Foundation (formerly known as FACE Foundation) is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting French-American relations through innovative cultural and educational projects. In partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States and under Villa Albertine, Albertine Foundation promotes artistic, literary and educational exchange and collaboration between creative professionals from both countries.

The Institut français is responsible for France’s international cultural program. Supervised by both the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and by the Ministry of Culture, it promotes French culture abroad through cultural exchange initiatives. Operating in a space where the arts, intellectual exchange, cultural and social innovation, and linguistic partnerships interact and intersect, it is also responsible for promoting the French language and the sharing of works, artists, and ideas all over the world. The Institut français is one of Villa Albertine’s main French partners.

The Foundation’s work has included the underwriting of public spaces. This includes being the largest supporter of Washington’s Franklin  Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the principal donor for the Emmett Till Exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, a major donor to New York’s Statue of Liberty Museum and to Washington’s  United States Holocaust Memorial  Museum and an early donor to Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center, its latest effort after decades of assistance on Chicago’s south side. 

In connection to French culture and history, it has long been helping Notre Dame restoration and has only accelerated this work since  the 2019 fire; the Louvre Endowment; and to education on Holocaust and Deportation scholarship including the 1988 Academy Award winning documentary., Hotel Terminus, the Life and Times of Klaus Barbie. 

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org. 

Georgetown is a Catholic and Jesuit, student-centered research university.

Established in 1789 in the spirit of the new republic, the university was founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical and spiritual understanding. We embody this principle in the diversity of our students, faculty and staff, our commitment to justice and the common good, our intellectual openness and our international character.

An academic community dedicated to creating and communicating knowledge, Georgetown provides excellent undergraduate, graduate and professional education in the Jesuit tradition for the glory of God and the well-being of humankind.

Georgetown educates women and men to be reflective lifelong learners, to be responsible and active participants in civic life and to live generously in service to others. Learn more about it here.

Industrial Bank is a historic African American-owned bank based in Washington, D.C., founded by John Whitelaw Lewis in 1913. Learn more about it here.

The Washington Informer is a Black, woman-owned multimedia news organization serving African Americans in the DMV. With over 60 years of experience spanning three generations, the organization is dedicated to delivering accurate, timely, and essential information, earning the trust of its audience along the way. Learn more about it here.