The Board of Directors of the Visual Arts Center of Richmond announces the upcoming departure of our Director of Development, Lizzie Oliver, effective January 20, 2023. Lizzie will continue to support the arts community in the Commonwealth of Virginia as she joins the Advancement Team at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as the Director of Principal Gifts.

“Lizzie has been such an invaluable credit to the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Over the almost 9 years she has been with us, she has made major enhancements to our organization and has consistently elevated our events, sponsorships and fundraising goals year after year. We are immensely proud of her accomplishments at VisArts, and while her leaving is bittersweet, we know she will only continue to strengthen the region’s arts community we all value so much,” says Kate Ackerly, Chair of VisArts’ Board of Directors.  

During her tenure as Director of Development, Lizzie Oliver more than tripled the size of investment from private individuals and quadrupled fundraising from event programming. Under her direction, Collectors’ Night 2022 was VisArts’ most profitable fundraising event in the organization’s history.  

“It has been an incredible honor and joy to serve the Visual Arts Center of Richmond and our mission to ‘celebrate and support the creative life of all people’ for nearly nine years,” says Mrs. Lizzie Carter Oliver, “I have loved being a part of the many ways VisArts has grown over the years, and I know it will only continue to play a strong and vital role in the Richmond arts community in the future. While this is a bittersweet goodbye, I look forward to engaging with VisArts in a new way, as a patron and friend.” 

Lizzie Oliver managed VisArts’ special events for four years before taking on her current role in 2018. She notably moved VisArts’ signature Craft + Design show to Main St. Station in 2017, increasing attendance to 10,000 visitors and launched VisArts’ inaugural Chili Throwdown in 2014.  She grew up in Roanoke, Virginia and graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College where she studied studio art and communications. She received her M.F.A. in painting and printmaking from Boston University. 

GIVE TO VISARTS IN LIZZIE’S HONOR