Triangle Community Foundation Awards $90,000 in General Operating Support Grants to 13 Local Arts &

Triangle Community Foundation Awards $90,000 in General Operating Support Grants to 13 Local Arts & Culture Organizations

9/29/2020
Research Triangle Park, September 28, 2020: Triangle Community Foundation has announced 13 inaugural grant partners in their recently re-launched Arts & Culture impact area. This group of grantee partners collectively received $90,000 in general operating support, responding to a need for flexible funding, particularly as arts organizations are facing unique challenges due to COVID-19.
 
The grantees are: Arts Access Inc., Chatham Arts Council, Community Music School, Diamante Arts & Cultural Center
Durham Symphony Orchestra, MOJOAA Performing Arts Company, NorthStar Church of the Arts, Pleiades Art Inc
St. Joseph's Historic Foundation, Inc. (Hayti Heritage Center), The African American Cultural Festival of Raleigh and Wake County, Inc., The Gifted Arts, Inc., Visual Art Exchange, and Walltown Children's Theatre.
 
The Foundation’s Arts & Culture Impact Area, launched in 2013, recently went through a re-evaluation, and while historically, public grants programs for nonprofits arts organizations in the Triangle were not offered, the Foundation has been able to increase their funding for this Impact Area, and were excited to re-launch by offering a public call for these grants over the summer. Program goals for this grant program are:
 
  1. To increase culturally representative arts programming by supporting organizations that have arts programming created by and/or centers people of color or other communities that are underrepresented in cultural arts spaces in the Triangle, including but not limited to disability or religious communities.
  2. To increase the arts in public and community spaces by support organizations that further the creation of arts projects in neighborhoods, rural places, or other places where there is otherwise limited art available to the community and/or organizations that are making art accessible to people during and after COVID-19 social distancing measures.
“Even before the impacts of the [COVID-19] pandemic, nonprofit arts organizations struggled with competition for resources and audiences, inadequate performing and rehearsal space, and lack of funding. In addition, during our re-evaluation of this work, we recognized that traditionally, philanthropy has overwhelmingly favored Eurocentric arts, leaving a gap in funding for other art forms and cultural expressions,” said Sarah Guidi, Program Officer for the Foundation. “As a result, arts organizations led by and serving audiences of color have not received adequate investment. We are so excited to be moving this Impact Area in this direction, and to be supporting the vital work of these 13 nonprofits in our region.”
 
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