February 2011

Helping City Arts Groups Survive in Tough Times

A $100,000 Trust grant to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council provides artists, like the one below, with free studio space on Governors Island and elsewhere.

Even for the City’s most die-hard cultural consumer, there are too many must-see performances, exhibits, and genre-defying offerings to experience in one lifetime. It’s a great problem to have—as an audience member. But the City’s arts organizations need much more than applause to stay afloat. Struggling arts groups need help with marketing, management, and finances from agencies that understand their predicament and can offer useful assistance.

Arts service groups—such as borough arts councils—provide this help, but are being pushed to capacity as demand for their services intensifies. The following grants will help them meet this demand:

• Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, $40,000 to build the management and financial capacity of City nonprofit theaters.
• Bronx Council on the Arts, $40,000 to provide business training for Bronx artists and arts groups.
• Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island, $100,000 to improve arts education by training and placing teaching artists in schools.
• Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, $100,000 to provide artists with studios in vacant spaces on Governors Island and elsewhere.
• Queens Council on the Arts, $50,000 to teach Queens arts and dance groups how to market themselves.