Those who think the arts are exempt from economic issues may have to think again.
The Ohio Arts Council, which awards grants to fund arts programs and organizations in Ohio, is assisting with funding the Assessment Project Initiative. The Initiative aims to set standards for arts in schools, joining math and reading in having certain requirements for students to meet.
Donna Collins, executive director for Ohio Alliance for Arts in Education, the organization behind the Initiative, said the OAC grants make all the difference in the movement of programs, which it works on in partnership with the Arts in Education department and the Ohio Department of Education.
“If we don’t get those grants, we can’t leverage other funding,” Collins said. “For the Assessment Project, we received $100,000 from National Endowment for the Arts because we were able to match the state dollars with the federal dollars.”
OAC, in turn, receives its funding from a specific wedge of the Ohio state budget and federal support from the National Endowment for the Arts. It is technically entitled to one-tenth of one percent of $45 billion. But with dropping dollar values and job cuts, it is no surprise the arts budget is shrinking along with the rest of the economy.
“Things are definitely tight,” said Jami Goldstein, the OAC communications director. She said although the budget for fiscal year 2002-03 was confirmed at the beginning of the period. It was still reduced by 12 percent, almost $4 million — with the fiscal year not yet over.
Goldstein said the recommended budget for fiscal year 2004-05 is already down 21 percent — about $8 million — from the original confirmed 2002-2003 budget.
This makes the already complicated process of awarding grants even more difficult.
In applying for an OAC grant, an organization must lay out the purpose of their request step by step and fulfill the OAC’s criteria. If the grant request is for a specific program, the organization must prove that the program is non-profit and handicap-accessible in all aspects, among other requirements.
Laura Bidwa, director of art and publication for Thurber House, said the non-profit literature organization applies for an operating support grant every two years.
“We receive the vast majority of our public money in the form of operating support grants, which are intended to support ongoing programs,” Bidwa said.
If applying for a grant for operating costs (awarded for two years at a time), the organization is evaluated every four to six years by OAC professionals to judge its qualifications. The council evaluates an organization’s activities on a scoring system, assigning points for characteristics such as diversity and involvement with the community.
For example, at the end of the first year of their grant, Thurber House must file activity and year-to-date financial reports, as well as an updated “mission statement” for the grant contract, Bidwa said.
In addition to the matter of passing assessment, the organization must also be able to match grant money on a one-to-one basis. This is done with other public funds, private donations, earned revenue and corporate and foundation support, Bidwa said.
All things considered, it’s a tough test to pass: the Council awarded only almost half of grant requests last year, turning down 772 out of 1,643 applicants.
“Our requests are not always honored, and we always score in the top three or four,” Collins said. “The most we can ask for is $40,000, and we usually get between $13,000 and $27,000.”
While public funding makes up a strong percentage of their income, all non-profit organizations work to make sure their budgets do not depend excessively on any one kind of support, Bidwa said.
“When the economy is slow, support tends to decline from all sources,” she said. “But diversification helps keep the changes less dramatic than they otherwise might be.”
The changes would affect Thurber programs such as the reading series, Evenings with Authors, the year-round Writer-in-Residence program, ongoing reading and writing programs and awarding literary achievement.
Many people would have to find somewhere else to go if these programs were cut. Last year, over 6,000 people took part in hearing the readings and visiting the materials and exhibits, Bidwa said.
OAAE — which receives additional funding from memberships, the NEA and the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. — acknowledges the impact of funding and financial support.
“Beyond the operating grant, we’ve had extensive support from OAC for (the) Initiative,” Collins said. “We received excess of $80,000 a year during the late ’90s (for the project),” she said.
Their Assessment Project aims to provide professional development to help teachers, artists and education directors in arts organizations understand how to fairly assess their students’ work.
“The Ohio legislature continues to ask that academic subjects be validated through either testing or assessment with data,” Collins said. “So in order for the arts to remain valid and worthwhile, we need to arm our teachers with the tools necessary.”
