The NEA just announced new grants made under the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” These were grants designed specifically to save jobs--either by keeping someone from being sacked, or by allowing a laid off employee to be rehired.You may recall that Culture Shock covered this topic months ago when we decried Republican Senator Tom Coburn’s batshit crazy attempt to restrict funding of arts and cultural projects. That coverage included this rip-roaringly hilarious parody of an NEA grant proposal.
The NEA awarded 631 grants totaling close to $30 million. Only arts organizations which had received NEA funding within the most recent few funding cycles were eligible. The NEA also allocated a share of economic stimulus funds for state arts agencies to distribute. Now that the first round of direct grants has been announced, I expect that the Oregon Arts Commission will soon be announcing who will receive funds from its pool of money.
Oregon received a total of $350,000 in nine grants. Curiously, Oregon Ballet Theatre wasn’t among them. The local winners were:
Literary Arts, Inc. $50,000
Miracle Theatre Company $25,000
Oregon Symphony Association $50,000
Portland Center Stage $50,000
Portland Youth Philharmonic Association $25,000
White Bird $50,000
Out of towners were:
CALYX, Inc. $25,000
Eugene Symphony Association, Inc. $50,000
Fishtrap, Inc. $25,000
Congratulations!
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Congratulations to those who secured these grants! In addition to the follow-up awards that will soon be announced by the OAC, the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) will award a few grants in Oregon as well.
As part of their application for NEA money (and OAC stimulus money, too), arts organizations had to demonstrate that they're on relatively solid ground except for a position or two, and will be able to sustain these positions next year when the stimulus money is gone but the economy has theoretically improved. I suspect that OBT doesn't have the strongest case right now, and that's why they're probably not going to get any of these dollars.
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