NYC Arts and Culture Funding Returns for 2021 Fiscal Year
Calling all NYC arts and culture organizations, planners, and programs! The 2021 fiscal year cultural development application deadline is only a few weeks away, ending Tuesday, February 18, 2020.
In the 2020 fiscal year, NYC, with its most robust arts and culture expense budget in its history, awarded $51.3 million to 985 non-profits, cultural institutions and arts organizations throughout the five boroughs. Underserved communities, individual artists and non-profits were key targets for this funding, according to a press release by the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) in December 2019.
The prioritization, planning, and support of NYC’s cultural sector emerged as a result of the 2017 CreateNYC Cultural Plan, NYC’s first ever comprehensive cultural plan. Online and in person, the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission and a hand-selected Citizens Advisory Committee (appointed by the Mayor, City Council Speaker, and Borough Presidents) coordinated outreach to over 188,000 NYC residents. Community engagement and input fueled the master planning of this document. For New Yorkers it became an opportunity, a call to action, “for everyone with a stake in the city’s cultural life — and that means everyone…”
Although the CreateNYC Cultural Plan took the first step for advocacy and equitable funding for future arts and culture programming in NYC, many stakeholders within the arts community responded, challenging the plan to have a deeper impact and to concentrate its energies towards specific actions and strategies instead of general goals. In response, the DCA released the second iteration of the cultural plan, the CreateNYC Action Plan in fall of 2019.
Shaped like an outline, the plan articulates a clear pathway for inclusive, equitable and resilient cultural planning, highlighting goals, action items, and strategies for supporting a diverse array of artists, arts initiatives, and cultural organizations.
With the 2019 Action Plan to guide its way and as the City undergoes its planning for the 2021 FY budget, the DCA is accepting applications from artists, cultural planners, non-profits, City institutions and all related organizations and stakeholders. To learn more about how you can apply, visit the Cultural Development Fund’s website, send an e-mail to the APA New York Metro Chaper’s Arts + Culture Subcommittee, and / or attend a seminar in-person or online.
If you are someone interested in the cultural well-being of our home and City, help spread the word! If we can each play a small part in promoting the diversity and inclusiveness of our arts and culture planning, the City will acknowledge the importance of, and continue to prioritize this funding. New Yorkers grow the arts and culture of our City, and the arts and culture of our City grow New Yorkers.
