Just the Facts
These are challenging times in the arts world. On the evening of Friday, May 2, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced the termination of dozens of grants to arts organizations both large and small (including George Mason University, for an artist-in-residence program with the world-renowned Silkroad Ensemble). These grants had already been approved, and many of the projects they were meant to support had already taken place, or are about to.
The impact of this withdrawal of promised funding is reverberating across the country. To be frank, George Mason will be all right. We’ll find another way to cover the new $20,000 hole in our budget. But there are many smaller non-profit arts organizations that will not be able to fill the sudden gap. Some of them may even be forced to curtail or cease operations. This will be particularly evident in smaller communities, rural areas, and regions without a strong philanthropic base able to respond to an emergency appeal.
The grant terminations led directly to a mass exodus of experienced, leadership-level professional staff from the NEA beginning on May 5. Directors in the program areas of dance, design, folk and traditional arts, museums and visual arts, theater, arts education, multidisciplinary works, and the division that works with state and local arts agencies all announced that they are leaving the Endowment.
The NEA’s budget stands at $210 million—roughly .0031 percent of the federal budget, according to American Theatre magazine.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (bea.gov) states that “Arts and cultural economic activity accounted for 4.2 percent of GDP, or $1.17 trillion, in 2023.”
The link between the NEA’s modest grant-making activity and that robust economic impact is discernible in the journey of a non-profit regional theater’s workshop production of a new play that then goes on to Broadway and Hollywood; in the education and training of thousands of artists and artisans across the country that leads to successful careers in the arts; in the nurturing of a multi-disciplinary musician who has won Grammy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize and contributed to a Platinum album (here I’m talking about Rhiannon Giddens, director of the Silkroad Ensemble mentioned above).
I hope to see you at the Hylton Center this spring and summer—amid the challenges, we have much to celebrate and enjoy together, as we live our famous four-word elevator speech: The Arts Create Community.
Rick Davis
Dean and Executive Director