The Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture July 11 announced over $31 million dollars will be awarded to over 750 arts, cultural, and equity-building organizations, a historic county investment in the nonprofit creative sector.
More than $26 million of that sum comes from Los Angeles County’s allocation of the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA relief and recovery programs. To distribute these one-time funds, the Department of Arts and Culture designed and implemented Creative Recovery LA. This initiative supports the nonprofit creative sector that is facing ongoing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, and focuses on organizations located in and serving communities most impacted by COVID and inequity. With a $26.4M total, 668 grantees, and over 1,900 individual grants awarded through the program’s innovative 5-in-1 grant opportunity design, Creative Recovery LA is believed to be the largest single publicly funded arts grant program in the history of the Los Angeles region.
The rest of the $31M is funded by the Department of Arts and Culture’s flagship Organizational Grant Program, which sustains LA County’s cultural ecosystem with funding to arts organizations of every artistic discipline, budget size, and geography, and the innovative Community Impact Arts Grant initiative, which supports municipalities and social service and social justice nonprofits that use the arts in their community service programs.
Creative Recovery LA
The Department of Arts and Culture designed Creative Recovery LA to support the post-COVID arts and creative economy, while leveraging the unique qualities of the arts to support the recovery of communities. Its program design included five grant opportunities, so organizations could apply, in one streamlined application, for funds to address distinct needs and policy goals—Arts Relief and Recovery; Creative Works and Jobs for Artists; Reopening Culture, Tourism, and Marketing; Creative Career Pathways for Youth; and Arts for Justice-Involved Youth. In all, 668 organizations were awarded 1,912 grants across the five program categories.
The Arts Relief and Recovery category is the largest, aiming to support all arts organizations, as well as social services, health, and social justice organizations that provide arts programming and services to often-vulnerable constituents communities Organizations supported reflect a wide range of diversity, from the Amazing Grace Conservatory to the Museum of Latin American Art to the Black Photographers Union to the Deaf West Theatre Co. Creative Works and Jobs for Artists will support organizations to engage individual artists, broadly defined, for work to create artworks and projects through artist residencies, productions, exhibits, and commissions. This category’s awardees include organizations such as Destination Crenshaw, the Arts Council for Long Beach, and the Tierra del Soul Foundation. Reopening Culture, Tourism, and Marketing provides marketing support to reach diverse artists including but not limited to digital, audio visual, social media, printing, and more. Its awardees include organizations such as the Floricanto Dance Theatre, Culture Shock Los Angeles, and the Pasadena Playhouse. Creative Career Pathways for Youth supports organizations with dedicated programs that provide underrepresented youth and emerging creative workers with training, career exposure, work-based learning, and other pathways to jobs in the creative economy. Organizations supported in this category include the Justice for My Sister Collective, the United Cambodian Community Center, and CASA 0101. The Arts for Justice-Involved Youth grant category supports organizations dedicated to supporting justice-impacted youth and communities through the arts, such as Homeboy Industries, Jail Guitar Doors, and No Easy Props.
To support applicants, the Department of Arts and Culture conducted 14 virtual and in-person application workshops throughout the county, attended by nearly 700 people. Creative Recovery LA funding prioritized organizations with headquarters or primary program location in or within one mile of Highest Need and High Need census tracts, according to LA County’s COVID-19 Vulnerability and Recovery Index. Ultimately, 83.3% of the awardees are in, or serve residents in, these Highest and High Need tracts.
Organizational Grant Program
This year, the Department of Arts and Culture delivers $4,518,000 to 236 organizations through its Organizational Grant Program or OGP. Funds can be used to support any number of current critical needs, from staffing and organizational infrastructure to public-facing programming. OGP grantees can also access the Department of Arts and Culture’s slate of professional development opportunities—programs designed in house, as well as scholarships for trainings and conferences.
OGP is Los Angeles County’s longest-running arts grant program, providing funding for the diverse ecosystem of arts nonprofits that range in size, budget, and discipline—from arts education, to theater, music, and dance, to visual, media, and literary arts. This cycle’s grantees, which include Active Cultures, Gay Men’ Chorus of Los Angeles, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, are located in and provide services across the County, and many have deep and culturally rooted ties in their communities.
The program also addresses systemic inequity in arts funding; 92% of awardees are organizations that are micro, small, and mid-size budget organizations or organizations with a budget under $3M. These small and micro budget organizations are often chronically underfunded and include those that reflect and serve communities of color, historically marginalized, and rural communities. (Explore a full list of grantees.)
Community Impact Arts Grant
The Department of Arts and Culture also announces this year’s Community Impact Arts Grants or CIAG, bringing $750,000 to 74 nonprofit social justice and social service organizations, and municipal departments throughout LA County. Unlike the department’s long standing funding for arts nonprofits, CIAG supports arts-based programs at non-arts social service and social justice organizations. It was designed to address two priorities: making arts services available to LA County residents who might not experience them through traditional arts venues and outlets and encouraging integration of the arts in cross-sector work at local nonprofits.
The program supports arts programming at nonprofits and municipalities that often serve low-income individuals, individuals with disabilities, veterans, systems-impacted youth, and other underserved communities. United American Indian Involvement and Sovern LA, for example, are grantees this year that support Native American and Indigenous communities.
Details: Explore a full list of grantees.