Council signals plans to review, revise new Cultural Arts grant program

City Council’s approval last week of nearly $4 million to fund a new Cultural Arts grant program came with an indication that the evaluation and allocation criteria may get a hard review and revisions to address loud concerns from arts groups that didn’t receive any awards.

Council unanimously approved the Cultural Arts Division’s plan for awarding $3.9 million in Hotel Occupancy Tax funds to 36 arts nonprofits in amounts ranging from $85,000 to $150,000. The awards are part of the Thrive portion of the three-phase framework created to adjust the priorities and criteria the city uses to distribute city funds to arts groups.

Thrive grants were available to nonprofits in operation for at least five years, with the next two award cycles, known as Elevate and Nexus, intended for newer groups and individual artists.

Concern and criticism of the process has grown in recent months among applicants who had regularly received Cultural Arts funding but weren’t among the recipients announced in recent weeks. Some applicants suggested the judging process didn’t include proper Latino or visual arts representation. The issue was serious enough that Cultural Arts staff and members of the Arts Commission spoke at length last month about the funding disruptions for some groups.

Mayor Kirk Watson had initially pushed to postpone the approval so Council members and staff could review the objections. Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said the postponement would delay funding to recipient organizations waiting for the money, though Watson called public comments about the program “disturbing” and indicated the need for further review of the program.

Council Member José Velásquez called the grants crucial for arts groups and said the city needs to do the best job possible to distribute the money fairly.

“Grant funding such as Thrive is crucial to the development and growth of Austin’s thriving arts and culture,” he said. “The comments that were made today are concerning, and I along with my colleagues plan to bring this item to the table, where we will be inviting the Economic Development Department and all relevant stakeholders to ensure that year three will have thorough vetting and an equitable process.”

The three-phase program is the result of a yearslong process of reevaluating how the city allocates its arts funding, with the goal of increasing funds to new arts groups and those representing marginalized communities.

The first move in that direction in 2018 caught many long-established arts organizations by surprise when they received greatly reduced or no funding from the city after years of getting awards that were essentially baked into their yearly budgets. The upheaval led to the multi-year review of the funding process, with the Covid-19 pandemic greatly slowing down that revamp.

Council Member Alison Alter said the funding available for each program means the city has to make hard choices in distributing the awards. She urged those who want the process changed to stay in contact with the Arts Commission and other leaders in the local arts community.

“This program is the culmination or the next step in a many-years process that we’ve been going through with looking at our Cultural Arts funding to see how we can better meet the needs of our diverse arts community,” she said. “We have limited funding, so there were great organizations that were left off and great organizations that maybe wanted more money, but I think we also acknowledge that we’re trying to do something difficult here, and a lot of thought and care has gone into it.”

The Arts Commission was scheduled to discuss the Thrive program and Cultural Arts funding at its meeting last night.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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