Nearly 320 nonprofit organizations will receive grants totaling more than $6.4 million as part of a Los Angeles County program, officials announced Friday.
The L.A. County Department of Arts and Culture will award grants to arts, cultural, social justice and social service organizations through its 2024-25 Organizational Grant Program and Community Arts Impact Grant awards. There was a larger allocation of about $1.2 million this fiscal year as a result of action taken by Supervisors Hilda Solis, Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath, which is the first increase since the inception of the program 15 years ago.
"Los Angeles County is increasing its investment in the artists, creators, and storytellers who enrich the lives of our diverse communities," Horvath said in a statement. "We value the important work of arts organizations and are excited to support even more nonprofits this year. Congratulations to all of this year's grant recipients."
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The Organization Grant Program will provide 238 organizations, of which 34 are first-time applicants to the program. Total allocation for grantees this year is $5,668,000 and awards range from $700 to $122,300.
Organization Grant Program grants are intended to strengthen the L.A. region's cultural ecosystem with funding to groups of every artistic discipline, budget size and geography. Grantees can use these funds to support critical needs, such as staffing, infrastructure, public arts programming, performing arts, film, arts education, among other things.
Grantees can also access the department's professional development services -- programs designed in-house, as well as scholarships for trainings and conferences.
According to the department, these grants address systemic inequity in arts funding. About 94% of the organizations that were awarded have budgets under $5 million, and 50% of those have budgets under $200K. Often these organizations are underfunded and include those that serve communities of color, historically marginalized and rural communities.
The Community Impact Arts Grant supports arts-based programs related to social justice and service organizations. This type of grant was designed to make arts services more available to county residents who may not get to experience them, and encourage the integration of arts across different nonprofits.
Grantee programs span from therapeutic visual arts to social justice filmmaking, music education for youth, dance empowerment and memory programs for dementia.
There were about 80 awardees for these grants this year, 19 of which were new applicants. The total allocation for Community Impact Arts Grants stood at $750,000, and awards ranged from $6,300 to $10,600.
"The Organizational Grant Program has supported Los Angeles County's arts nonprofits since the 1990s, and Friday, the nonprofit sector that it helped build is a crucial part of the larger L.A. County arts and culture infrastructure and creative economy, Mitchell said in a statement. "These grants not only equitably support the post-pandemic recovery of our arts organizations but bring resources to hardly reached communities and direct access to quality arts activities and programming."
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