A new round of funding will be made available to arts and culture organizations in Northwest Arkansas that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Northwest Arkansas Arts and Culture Bridge Fund is launching a second round of grants of up to $20,000 that organizations can apply for during December. The latest round of funding will total $250,000 and is supported by the Walton Family Foundation.
This grant funding can be used for transition planning; developing new business models, staffing models or programs; winding down programming and operations, generating new revenue streams; developing new partnerships; and building new infrastructure.
In April 2020, the Northwest Arkansas Council’s Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) launched the first round of grant funding. The purpose of the funding was to help nonprofits “stabilize and reimagine operational and programing models” as they contended with the ongoing pandemic.
Twenty-three arts and culture organizations received grants in the first round. In total, $500,000 in funding was distributed.
The first round of grants went to the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese, the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra, Art Feeds, Art Ventures, Community Creative Center, Fayetteville Roots, Latin Art Organization of Arkansas, LatinX Theatre Project, Marshallese Educational Initiative, Museum of Native American History, Music Moves, PIXEL: A School for Media Arts, NWA Ballet Theatre, Open Mouth Reading Series, Ra-Ve Cultural Foundation, Teen Action and Support Center, The Art Experience Inc., The House of Songs, Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, Tricycle Theatre for Youth, and Trillium Salon Series.
To be eligible for the funding, organizations must be arts and culture-focused nonprofits located in Washington and Benton counties with an annual operating budget of $3 million or less in the most recent fiscal year.
“The most competitive proposals will be part of long-term plans to strategically and organizationally shift in response to the ongoing and dramatic changes within the arts and culture sector due to COVID-19,” Kelsey Howard, CACHE program director said in a statement.
The deadline to apply is Thursday, Dec. 17. Grant decisions will be made by Friday, Jan. 29, 2021.
Click here to apply.
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