Arkansas: Cultural Regional Arts Grants

Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe recently released a special $500,000 appropriation to the Arkansas Arts Council. These funds will be distributed via a new Cultural Regional Arts Grants program. The program aims to promote the public’s awareness and enjoyment of Arkansas’s heritage and creative economy by funding significant projects that:

make arts and heritage programs possible where they otherwise would not occur;
foster collaborations that increase the size or scope of heritage projects;
enhance heritage programs by adding new components (such as teaching tools, exhibition displays, etc.);
advance the management, stewardship, or preservation of facilities, collections, sites or structures important to Arkansas heritage.

Application review for this competitive program will assess all proposed projects’ public visibility and projected impact on the region or state as well as the applicant’s operating history and implementation capacity. Opportunities to leverage other funds also will be considered. Designed for maximum flexibility, the new awards will be granted on a nonmatching basis, and funds may support program or operating expenses as well as construction, land acquisition, renovation, major maintenance or equipment purchases. This is a fast-track program. Funding decisions will be made and projects will get under way early in the new year.

The appropriation and release of these funds represents a step toward a policy recommendation made in Creativity in the Natural State: Strategies to Increase Creative Capacity and Competitive Advantage. That report, an outgrowth of a multiyear creative economy research collaboration, urged the state to establish an annual grants fund within the Arkansas Arts Council to support innovative art, culture or design-based projects. For more information about this program or about the Arkansas Arts Council’s creative economy development efforts, contact Executive Director Joy Pennington.