Report from the California Art Council 1/27/23 Public Meeting
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Actions taken at Meeting:
The minutes for the Dec. 8, 2022 Council meeting were approved.
The Council voted to recertify the 14 state designated Cultural Districts for an additional 5 years.
The Council voted to approve the allocation of $9,400,000 to the 14 Cultural Districts with a uniform allocation of $671,428 for each Cultural District, contingent upon their successful Recertification. The remaining $600,000 to be allocated: $300,000 for an evaluation program; $200,000 for an in person convening of all the Cultural Districts; $100,000 for staff.
Discussion items and next steps
For each of the items below this was a discussion period only of the recommendations provided, no action was taken.
In each case the Committee recommendations were presented, followed by Public Comment and Council discussion.
The information gathered from Public Comment and Council discussions will next go back to the respective committees for additional discussion and work.
The Committees will then formulate final recommendations that will be brought back to the full Council for final discussion and vote.
The 2023 Grant Program Guidelines will be discussed again at the February Council meeting and voted on at the March Council Meeting.
The Committee recommendations for the 2022 Program Allocations Remaining to be Encumbered and the 2023 Program Allocations will be presented at the February Council meeting for final discussion and vote.
Programs slated for opening with 2023 funds
Arts & Cultural Organizations General Operating Support
- Consider increasing the cap for organization budget size above $250,000 to allow mid-sized organizations to apply.
Impact Projects
- This program is acting as an umbrella program for 2023 for all project-based funding.
- Consider raising the maximum request amount or offer a tiered request amount.
- Include language in the program purpose to center under resourced groups specifically served by previously funded grant programs that no longer exist (e.g. Returned Citizens, Artists with Disabilities, Veterans, Touring and Presenting, Reentry Through the Arts.)
- Make sure the field understands that the idea is not to take away those opportunities, this is just intended to be a more efficient way to serve those needs by having them under a single umbrella.
State Local Partners
- Specify in the guidelines a one-time increase to SLP baseline funding to support their participation in co-creating and attending an in-person convening.
- Return to two-year grant activity period, which would provide additional time for SLPs to co-create and participate in the convening.
- Include more robust language in the guidelines about equity goals and objectives for SLPs and what technical assistance and capacity building the CAC will provide to support equity outcomes.
State Local Partners – Mentorship
- Increasing the total award amount, providing additional support for both the mentor agency and for the new SLP
- Increasing the grant activity period to at least two and potentially three years. A three-year grant activity period would allow the new SLP to be eligible for funding from CAC on their own accord once the mentorship period had ended.
- Increasing the administrative percentage to reflect the high administrative costs associated with designing and implementing a mentorship program.
Folk and Traditional Arts – Administering Organization
- Consider increasing the administrative percentage from the current cap of 10% in order to more adequately support design and implementation of this program.
- Consider establishing administrative percentage rates based on threshold of low, medium and high program design and implementation levels required for programs.
Statewide and Regional Networks – No suggested changes
2022 Program Allocations Remaining to be Encumbered
- For each of these programs the Council had voted to allocate funds to the program, but in both cases only one organization submitted an eligible application. Council voted not to fund the applications, but to re-examine the guidelines and re-release the programs.
- However, due to the current recession and deficit, the 2022 funds allocated to the programs could revert back to the General Fund if left unencumbered between now and June 30, 2023.
- The Allocations Committee presented options to the Council for each program.
Arts and Accessibility (Administering Organization) Program
- Follow the initial Council decision to review and revise the AO program guidelines and re-release it, contingent on the funds still being available. There is a risk of losing the funds with this option.
- To prevent funds from being lost, re-allocate the $500,000 to existing 2022 grantee organizations for them to support individual artists including those with disabilities.
Arts Administrators Pipeline Fellowship (Administering Organization) Program
- Adhering to the previous decision of clarifying and re-releasing the program. This would be contingent on the funds still being available and presents a risk of losing the funding.
- To prevent funds from being lost, Council might re-consider awarding the previous applicant organization that received a rank of 4 (“Good”) and immediately encumbering the funds.
- To prevent funds from being lost, re-allocating the $1,165,000 to augment awards of a different 2022 program. For example, the Council might consider augmenting the awards for the Reentry through the Arts 2022 grantees. The Reentry Through the Arts program will not be returning in 2023, and additional funds to this area would be highly beneficial. This would also reduce the pressure on the 2023 Impact Projects program expectations to cover these types of projects.
Discussion on 2023 Program Allocations Options
State-Local Partner Program Allocation Ideas
- Maintain maximum request amount of $60,000 plus $5,000 to implement the Poetry Out Loud local program activities.- Increase the grant activity period from 1 year to 2 years, with the first year of funding coming from the 2023 budget and the second year of funding being contingent on 2024’s budget.
State-Local Partner-Mentoring Program Allocation Ideas
- Increase the maximum request amount from $40,000 for a one-year grant period to $50,000 per year for a three-year grant period to provide additional support for both the mentor agency and for the new SLP.
- Increase the grant activity period from 1 year to 3 years, with the first year of funding coming from the 2023 budget and the second and third years of funding being contingent on future budgets.
SLP and SLP-M Program Allocation Ideas
- The Allocations Committee suggests that Council discuss whether an SLP convening should be funded through the SLP or SLP-Mentoring program, or both.
- The Equity Committee recommended at the December 2022 Council meeting that the CAC engage with the State-Local Partners in “co-creating a convening of SLPs in 2024 that supports their efforts to achieve their equity goals as per the outcome of the Equity Impact Assessment”.
Statewide and Regional Networks Program Allocation Ideas
- Maintain the maximum request amount at $50,000.
- Reduce the overall allocation to this program to stay within the 2023 local assistance budget; this would mean fewer awards may be funded while preserving the maximum request amount.
Folk and Traditional Arts Program Allocation Ideas
- Maintain the maximum request amount and overall allocation at $1,000,000. Maintaining the same maximum request amount and overall allocation would help with consistency in monitoring and evaluating this pilot program.
Arts & Cultural Organizations General Operating Support
- Maintain the maximum request amount at $30,000.
- Consider expanding the grant activity period from one year to two years, funding the first year from 2023 funds and the second year of funding being contingent on the 2024 budget.
Cultural Pathways
- Consider not allocating any funds to this program in 2023 (decrease the total program allocations from $2,000,000 in 2022 to $0 in 2023). The current Cultural Pathways grantees are funded through 2024. This suggestion will allow the Council to invest more of the 2023 funds to project-based grants and partnership program grants.
Impact Projects
- Consider increasing the proposed maximum request amount from $20,000 to $30,000. This program is acting as the umbrella for all project-based grant funding this cycle, and other project-based grants had significantly higher maximum request amounts (up to $50k).
- Increasing the overall allocations to this program. Impact Projects is acting as the umbrella for all project-based grant funding this cycle. Increasing the allocations will help cover the increased need from the field, and ensure that the CAC is investing equally between project-based and general operating support type programs.
Long Form Notes from meeting
- At the top of the meeting new staff and council members were introduced
- New Board Chair Chelo Montoya and Executive Director Jonathan Moscone each made reports, the full texts are included in the meeting packet document.
Public Comment (summary of all comment sections)
- Several commenters urging the cap of $250,000 for general operating grants be increased, and that the 1 -to- 1 match be eliminated.
- There were different ideas about how to increase the cap, how high it should go, if there should be a certain percentage designated for different tiers.
-Several comments asking the CAC to prioritize direct funding to artists and arts producing organizations, as opposed to using a third party.
-There were comments requesting that the 1-to-1 match required of arts organizations be eliminated to help address equity issues around smaller groups or groups in rural areas not having the ability to source other funding.
-There were comments expressing concerns that SLPs are not adequately monitored or assessed.
-Other comments in support of SLPs stressed the value of the SLP’s as being more closely connected to local artists and groups. Also, as the only grantee required to maintain an office and staff, they are sometimes the only organization with the capacity to serve as the voice of local communities. There were requests to increase the funding to the SLP program.
-There were several comments on making improvements to grant guidelines, such as simplifying the application process and offering support for organizations with fewer resources as well as spreading out application due dates instead of multiple grant deadlines on the same day.
-There were a number of comments in support of cultural districts and their positive impacts. One commenter asked the CAC to consider including cultural hubs that are not real-estate based when it comes time to expand the program.
-Multiple mentions of the need for more timely payments for grantees, stressing the impact that this has on small arts organizations when they are forced to front expenses for programs for many months while waiting for payments of their grants.
-There were suggestions that Advisory Boards be set up for some of the grant programs
On behalf of Californians for the Arts/ California Arts Advocates, Jennifer Laine (Board member and Executive Director of the San Benito County Arts Council) made the following comments:
“I am speaking to you today in my role as Chair of the Policy Committee with California Arts Advocates. We applaud the CAC’s efforts to align its grantmaking practices to its broader strategic equity goals, which include more equitable distribution of state arts funding across California’s diverse communities. Specifically, we’d like to underscore the CAC’s efforts to increase the availability and accessibility of CAC funding to small budget organizations, as outlined in the General Operating Support Grant, and note how critically important Gen Ops funding is to the field. However, we strongly recommend a more nuanced approach to the CAC’s definition of “small budget organizations,” which currently includes a maximum annual budget of $250K. We have heard from member organizations and artists throughout the state that the current $250K budget threshold negatively impacts a vast swath of other small budget organizations, which include culturally specific, BIPOC-centered organizations. These organizations, with budgets in the $250-$500K range and beyond, face increasing costs as they aspire to pay artists a living wage, are dealing with the impacts of AB5, inflation, high housing and venue costs and are still recovering from the impacts of COVID.
We recommend that a portion of Gen Ops funds, up to 25%, is set aside for small-medium sized organizations with budgets above $250K. We also strongly recommend that the CAC eliminates the 1:1 matching requirement for this grant, as it presents a compliance hardship for grantees, as well as an obstacle to applying in the first place. Overall, funding for the CAC is simply not sufficient to meet the needs of the field and so at this point, prioritization is necessary. Please join us in advocacy to increase public investment in the arts! In closing, we look forward to a robust discussion amongst Council members over the next two months, and we urge you to take our feedback into account.”
Introduction
The agenda of the January 27th meeting of the California Arts Council (CAC) featured introductions of council members and new staff, a general public comment section, two items for discussion: guidelines for 2023 grant programs and allocations for 2023 grant programs, and two voting items: cultural districts recertification and cultural districts allocation. This post will primarily summarize the discussion and voting items and all public comments.
The top of the meeting welcomed the new chair, Chelo Montoya, and Vice-chair, Vicki Estrada, and the new and reappointed Council members: Caleb Duarte, Leah Goodwin, Alex Israel, Nicola Miner and Olivia Raynor. The Council also thanked departing member Jodie Evans for her service. During his report, Executive Director Jonathan Moscone introduced the “Rose, Thorn, Bud” method for reflecting on what is successful, what is challenging and what is promising. His rose is having a full slate of council members and the new chairs and their upcoming public retreat in March. His thorn is the anticipated economic difficulty that California will be facing in the next year. He acknowledged that the Governor’s proposed 2023-24 budget made one significant cut to the CAC budget, reducing the $30M allocation to Cultural Districts to $10M for the coming year. His bud is knowing that we have a Governor and Legislature who support the arts and that we are all “creative people,” who, as he said, “know how to find ways to take the thorns out and to nurture the buds that enable us to do our work for our communities.”
Discussion Item: Guidelines for Slate of 2023 Grant Programs
The guidelines for seven of the CAC 2023 grant programs were discussed in order to get the Council’s input into the foundational elements shaping them. The discussion recommendations for each of the program guidelines were presented, followed by a period of Public Comment and discussion by the Council Members. These recommendations will then go back to the committee for deeper discussion and research and will be brought back to the full council at the March meeting. It was pointed out a few times that this discussion is about priorities and guidelines, the specific amount of funds for each program is then discussed in the later Allocations agenda item.
Arts & Cultural Organizations General Operating Support
Currently this program only considers applications from organizations with annual budgets of less than $250K– is it time for this cap to be increased? During this discussion there was a mix of comments both in favor of increasing this limit, but also concern about the impact that might have on the organizations under $250K. There were multiple endorsements to expand the eligibility of mid-sized organizations, to “grow a forest” of different sized organizations, with budgets between $500K to $2M considered. Rather than prioritizing small orgs in the guidelines, a tiered approach to the funding was discussed, with the idea of allocating a percentage of the grant funds to small, medium and med-large organizations and possibly tying those percentages to equity data. This approach would help ensure that smaller organizations don’t have to compete with larger groups and that mid-sized organizations would have funding available to them.
Impact Projects
This program is acting as an umbrella program for project-based funding. The Council discussed raising the maximum award amount or offering a tiered award and to add requirements to center under-resourced groups specifically served by previously funded grant programs that no longer exist, such as, Returned Citizens, Artists with Disabilities, Veterans, Touring and Presenting, Reentry Through the Arts. The idea is not to take away those opportunities, but to offer a more efficient way to serve those needs by having them under a single umbrella. It was also proposed to consider focusing this program on smaller organizations.
State-Local Partners
Council members discussed specifying in the new guidelines a one-time increase to SLP funding to support their participation in an in-person convening and increasing the grant activity period from one to two years and including more robust language in the guidelines about equity goals and objectives for SLPs and what technical assistance, capacity building and evaluation support the CAC will provide to increase equitable outcomes. Council had wide agreement on providing additional funding to SLPs for conveying as well as needing support for evaluation. There was also agreement that a two-year grant period would allow for more planning and efficiency.
State-Local Partners Mentorship – This grant program is intended to enlist existing SLP’s as mentors to help local arts agencies in the four CA counties (Alpine, Glenn, Kings, San Joaquin) that don’t have a county-designated partner with the CAC to become SLPs. Only one application was submitted last year, so Council discussed and, in general, agreed on increasing the dollar amount of the grant and increasing the grant period from two to three years.
Folk and Traditional Arts Administering Organization
Council members considered increasing the administrative percentage from the current cap of 10% in order to more adequately support the design and implementation of this program. The discussion covered how this program is best served by an administrating model and how much hands-on relationship-building and administration is required. A 15% cap was proposed, acknowledging that such a change would be precedent setting.
State & Regional Networks
No changes have been proposed to the guidelines.
Public Comment on the guidelines discussion mirrored the General Public Comments at the top of the meeting with some of the same speakers repeating their comments.
Allocations for the Slate of 2023 Grant Programs
[As per agenda, should cover Arts & Access, Arts Admin Pipeline, SLPS, SLP mentor, SRN, Folk & Trad, Operating, Cult Pathways, Impact Project]
In this discussion item, the Council considered how to encumber 2022 funds that had been allocated to different programs but not yet awarded, as unawarded funds may be at risk of reverting back to the State General Fund at the end of the current fiscal year.
The Arts & Accessibility program had only one applicant in 2022. Council members discussed whether to revise and re-open the program or to encumber the $500K to existing 2022 grantee organizations to support individual artists including those with disabilities. One idea mentioned was to possibly enlist SLPS in distributing the Arts & Accessibility funds, but staff suggested that splitting the $500K between the 55 SLPs would lead to really small pots of local funding. Similarly, the Arts Administrators Pipeline Fellowship ($1.165M ) had only 1 applicant and was not awarded. One of the ideas considered was channeling those dollars to the 2022 Re-entry through the Arts grantees, since that program is not continuing in 2023. There was a suggestion to utilize the four regional administering organizations of the Independent Artist Fellowship program to more quickly distribute the funds.
Lowering matching funds requirements was discussed but staff notes that some funding from the state General Fund comes with a mandate to be matched. Currently the Council has agreed to remove matching requirements on project-based grants but the requirement remains on grants for operating funds. Additionally the Council considered not allocating funds to the Cultural Pathways program in 2023 as the current grantees are funded through 2024. It was suggested to raise the Impact Projects maximum grant amount from $20K to $30K, as these projects create momentum and new relationships - general support was expressed for this change.
Voting Item: Cultural Districts Recertification
The Cultural Districts program was enacted in 2015 (AB 189 (Bloom) creating a new tool for the development, support, and preservation of California’s extensive and diverse cultural assets. The CAC established criteria and guidelines to designate cultural districts through a competitive application process, which began as a two-year pilot project in 2017 offering a $5K stipend annually (for a total of $10K) and state-designation for five years, for 14 cultural districts statewide. The districts have received no state funding since 2019. While $30M was allocated in the last state budget, the Governor’s current budget has cut that funding to $10M. Because of this, the Council will not be expanding the number of designations at this time. For this item, Council discussed recertifying the fourteen existing districts. Council members have visited as well as reviewed the five year reports and the next five year plans of each of the districts.
One Councilmember proposed funding $600K to existing districts and saving $1M for new districts. Moscone- money is only allowed to go this year to established programs and partners, expansion is not possible this year as per Governor’s instructions. Would like to see cultural district budget reflect that arts partners are getting funded as much as marketing folks.
The motion to recertify the existing fourteen passed unanimously.
Voting Item: Cultural Districts Allocations
The funding scenario proposed allocates $671,428.50 to each district over three years along with allocating $300K for program evaluation, $200K for convening cultural districts and $100K for legislatively mandated program funding for staff.
The motion to allocate funding in this method passed unanimously.