Connecting Communities, Creating Access
In January ArtsFund awarded $32,500 in grants as part of our Multicultural Arts Project, supporting ethnically and culturally diverse arts and cultural groups throughout the Central Puget Sound Region. The funds were distributed as matching incentive grants with the objective of empowering recipients to leverage these grants to raise greater support for their organizations. To date, $92,500 in grants have been awarded through the Multicultural Arts Project.
In 2017, grant recipients used funds to stage large and small scale performances, enable platforms for cross cultural dialogue, bring non-local artists to Seattle, support heritage events, provide teaching artists for underserved youth, and more. Recipients also leveraged their ArtsFund grants to attract new donors and matching funds to their organizations. 2018 grant recipients will continue to use funds for programs connecting communities, creating access to the arts for underserved populations, enhancing cross cultural understanding, and serving youth.
New groups to the fund this year include Longhouse Media, which catalyzes Indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-expression, cultural preservation, and social change, and Latino Theatre Projects, which engages the Latino community in a variety of theatre-based activities to empower and integrate its members through those artistic expressions. Large or small, each of the organizations that have received funds through the Multicultural Arts Project is doing tremendous work in our region, at once providing a space for individuals to connect with culture and enriching the broader community.
The Multicultural Arts Project aligns with ArtsFund’s value of fostering equitable and inclusive communities and ensuring the arts sector reflects, represents, and engages the entire community. ArtsFund is proud to support the recipients of the MAP grants, who are doing inspiring work – using art as a tool to enhance understanding across cultural, generational, and even geographic boundaries. ArtsFund is grateful to the donors to this fund whose generosity helps broaden the range of arts and cultural organizations that we serve, including those that have historically been excluded from traditional funding streams.
Recipients of the 2018 Multicultural Arts Project grants include:
– Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas
– Chinese Arts and Music Association
– Latino Theatre Projects
– Longhouse Media
– Northwest African American Museum
– Pratidhwani
– Seattle Latino Film Festival
– Tasveer
ArtsFund is honored to be the beneficiary of the Hong Kong Greater China Business Association of Washington’s 2018 Lunar New Year Gala on February 24, 2018. Proceeds from the event will benefit Asian arts and cultural organizations in 2019 through year three of the Multicultural Arts Project.
Donors interested in contributing to the Multicultural Arts Project, and helping sustain the organizations funded through it, contact Annemarie Scalzo at annemaries@artsfund.org.
All grant recipients join ArtsFund’s network of over 115 cultural partners. For more information about ArtsFund’s cultural partners, visit: https://www.artsfund.org/culturalpartners
Photo credits: (L-R): Northwest African American Museum, Everyday Black with work by photographers Jessica Rycheal and Zorn B. Taylor, photo by Michael Maine; Latino Theatre Projects, photo still from Mariela in the Desert by Karen Zacarias, pictured are Angela Maestas (Mariela) and Esteban Ortiz (Carlos), photo by Michael Brunk / nwlens.com; Tasveer, TasVR Virtual Reality, photo by Abhishek Kulkarni; Pratidhwani, scene from Pratidhwani’s production “Kingdom of Cards,” photo by Siddhartha Saha Photography.