Thursday, February 15, 2024
Dear Arizona arts leaders,
Yesterday, the Arizona Commission on the Arts opened applications for Fiscal Year 2025 Creative Capacity Grants (CCG), the agency’s flagship grant program, through which it delivers general operating support to nonprofit arts organizations like Arizona Commission on the Arts. Within the grant guidelines we have published potential award ranges for applicants at each of the CCG funding levels, 1-8. This table is provided below, for your reference:
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You will notice that these potential award amounts are significantly lower than the awards we were able to fund last year. In the interest of transparency, we have elected to present you with this forecast of what may be possible in FY2025.
The agency’s actual grantmaking capacity for FY2025 will not be known until the State’s budget is passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the Governor. This typically happens in late spring. The number and size of grants this agency will award in FY2025 will depend on the outcome of this legislative budget session.
As the State is facing a historic budget deficit, a one-time legislative appropriation, such as those that bolstered our agency’s grantmaking in past years, is significantly less likely to make it into the State’s FY2025 budget. If one does, it will likely be for much less than the $5 million appropriated to the agency in FY2023 and FY2024.
The agency’s one-time $5 million appropriation for FY2024 comprised 66% of the agency’s total budget and 83% of our total grantmaking. In the absence of such an appropriation, our grantmaking capacity will be greatly diminished. (The published award ranges assume a total grantmaking budget of approximately $500,000 and minimal growth to the applicant pool.)
These concerns are not new. In 2012, the Arizona Commission on the Arts was removed from the State’s General Fund as an ongoing budget line-item. Since that time, the agency’s annual grantmaking budget has been especially volatile, dependent on one-time legislative appropriations. Legislative appropriations of $1 – 5 million have been included in eight of the past 13 fiscal years. In the other six, the agency had no appropriation. (More info on Arts Commission funding over the years can be found here.)
This year is unique, however, due to the State’s massive deficit projections for FY2025.
Nevertheless, we are committed to doing all we can to secure a legislative appropriation, as are our friends at Arizona Citizens for the Arts, who are in active and ongoing dialogue with arts champions in the legislature. Though we are preparing for the worst, we remain hopeful for a more positive outcome. Even as we encourage grantees to budget conservatively for FY2025, we believe a legislative appropriation is still a possibility.
We hope you will personally take part in the legislative budget process, reaching out to your legislators and expressing the value of public funding for the arts and the work it supports in your own community and throughout the state. Now is the time to activate your board members and patrons. Direct them to sign up for legislative updates from Arizona Citizens on the Arts and encourage them to raise their voices when calls for action are issued. Together, we can ensure a brighter future than the one suggested in our potential award projections.
Finally, I want to personally thank you for your partnership and ongoing commitment to serving Arizonans through the arts. I look forward to a brighter future when we can reliably provide funding commensurate with your contributions to the state’s cultural vitality, its local economies, the education of our youth, the cohesion of our communities, and the creative engagement of all.
Sincerely,
Jacky Alling
Executive Director, Interim
