Sharon DeMark

Sharon DeMark (she/her/hers) is a program officer for the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, the F. R. Bigelow Foundation and the Mardag Foundation in the areas of arts and humanities, aging services, legal services, and civic engagement. For the past seven years, she has been an active member of the Racial Equity Funders Collaborative, working with other arts funders in Minnesota to address inequities and injustice in the field. Prior to working in philanthropy, she headed education/community engagement departments for theaters and performing arts centers in the Twin Cities and New York City. In that work she was instrumental in founding international children’s festivals at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Sharon has sat on selection panels for Saint Paul Cultural STAR, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Sharon draws and paints whenever possible and has had her work exhibited at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and published in the Saint Paul Almanac. She lives in Saint Paul with her family, enjoying the beauty of the seasons, and desperately missing live music.