An additional $50 million for the National Endowments for the Arts
The arts community throughout the United States has been heavily impacted by recent funding reductions due to philanthropic retrenchment after the past year’s stock market declines and by reductions in state and local support because of revenue shortfalls in a depressed economy. The National Endowment for the Arts is positioned to use existing mechanisms to allocate lifeline funding quickly to these nonprofit organizations to retain jobs. These existing mechanisms provide direct grants to fund arts projects and activities with 40 percent distributed by formula to State arts agencies and regional arts organizations and 60 percent set aside for competitively selected arts projects and activities.The first two grants funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of interest to libraries were posted on Grants.gov March 19. $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts was included in the bill. You can find the grant announcements at: http://www.arts.gov/grants/apply/recovery-states/index.html.