Arts Commission questions changes to Nexus’ $500K grant process

With the city’s next round of Nexus cultural arts grants open to applicants, members of the Arts Commission recently discussed how to improve the selection process for awardees so the program better serves emerging and disadvantaged artists.

At last week’s meeting, the commission received a presentation from Zac Traeger, executive director of the Museum of Human Achievement arts space, which dealt with that organization’s grant workshops that helped attendees secure $1.4 million in cultural arts funding.

The Nexus program is shifting to a single annual application cycle from its previous twice-per-year cadence, with the next round having opened on Jan. 28, and closing on March 6. The 100 grants of $5,000 each are intended to fund cultural activities taking place between May 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026.

In addition to the once-per-year rhythm, the application process replaced long-answer narrative questions with 10 multiple-choice questions and two short-answer responses, with the intention of simplifying the application. Work samples will still be considered as part of the scoring process, and applications will be evaluated through an automated scoring system before undergoing review by cultural funding staff and third-party administrators.

Traeger and several commission members expressed concern that the change to mostly multiple-choice questions could make it difficult for applicants to explain the artistic intent of their projects, with scoring conducted in a highly objective manner. They also discussed the potential arts funding impacts of proposed Texas Senate Bill 689 on programs intended to serve marginalized communities.

SB 689 seeks to ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and initiatives within state agencies, local governments, school districts and public charter schools. The bill prohibits entities from implementing policies or programs that consider race, sex or ethnicity in hiring, training or governance, except as required by federal law.

“I want resources to be distributed with fairness, integrity and honor, and to me we have to take into consideration the economic, material and social conditions of the grant applicant. Structurally, we have a state that’s continually trying to prevent some of these considerations, be it out of fear or out of cruelty,” Traeger said, cautioning that application questions concerning census tract economic data can punish long-established artists whose neighborhoods have prospered in recent years.

“It once again punishes those who have had neighborhoods and wealth grow around them, and a lot of my community and friends have seen their neighborhoods have angular townhouses and everything change around them.”

Commissioner Faiza Kracheni said previous Nexus applicants could be confused by the dramatic shift in the submission process, with the multiple-choice format possibly favoring those from more privileged backgrounds instead of the emerging artists the program is intended for.

“The grants make it hard for somebody that maybe doesn’t have a traditional pathway in the arts, and I think the stripped-down nature of the Nexus grant … learning how to write an artist bio or an artist statement or even explain what you’re doing as an artist in third person is really important,” she said. “It often leads to bigger ideas for that artist, and so taking that away is really doing a disservice if the intent is to be accessible to new artists and established artists from different demographics.”

Nexus is part of a trio of cultural arts funding programs that were restructured in recent years to focus on helping underserved artists and arts organizations. That change has resulted in a variety of criticisms, with established organizations losing long-stable funding and a recent city audit finding conflicting messaging and intent in the new programs.

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