The Foraker Group

Posted Under: COVID

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There is direct support for both nonprofit cultural organizations and state and local arts and humanities agencies, as well as economic relief provisions for independent contractors, “gig economy” workers and artists, entrepreneurs, and small businesses working in the creative economy.

Federal Arts Funding (Note: This is a supplement to their annual appropriations)

• $75 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
  • 60/40 split with 40% distributed to statewide arts councils
  • The 60% will be eligible to organizations funded by the NEA in the past 4 years (69 programs in Alaska are eligible under this criteria)
• $75 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
  • 60/40 split with 40% distributed to statewide forums
• Special note: All these new fast-track grants will be for general operating support with no match.  
• $75 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• $50 million for the Institute of Library and Museum Sciences
• $25 million for the Kennedy Center
• $7.5 million for the Smithsonian

Alaska Update as of April 22

• NEA – Alaska State Council on the Arts will receive Alaska’s distribution.
  • Expecting $400,000
  • Creating an Arts and Culture Relief Fund for individual artists and organizations
  • Money not likely available until September
  • Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation is posting other funding opportunities available to artists and organizations
  • For more information go to www.akarts.org/covid19
• NEH- Alaska Humanities Forum will receive Alaska’s distribution
  • Expecting $400,000
  • There will be a local granting process and a national granting process
  • Local funding applications are available at akhf.org/grants – deadline is May 1, for more information contact Jann Mylet at jmylet@akhf.org
  • More information on the national granting process: NEH CARES: Cultural Organizations emergency relief grants provide up to $300,000 to cultural nonprofits to support a range of humanities activities across the fields of education, preservation and access, public programming, digital humanities, and scholarly research through December 31, 2020. Funding may be used for short-term activities that emphasize retaining or hiring humanities staff at cultural organizations across the country to maintain or adapt critical programs during the pandemic. The deadline to apply is May 11, 2020. Application guidelines are available on the NEH website. Applicants will be informed of funding decisions by June 2020.
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting
  • $112,000 each for 25 AK public radio stations and $260,000 each for four public television station

Community Development Block Grants, Small Business Administration, and Unemployment Insurance

• $5 billion for Community Development Block Grants to cities and counties. Arts groups should work directly with their mayors and local economic development offices for grant support.
• $350 billion for Small Business Administration (SBA) emergency loans of up to $10 million for small businesses—including nonprofits (with less than 500 employees), sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals (like individual artists)—to cover payroll costs, mortgage/rent costs, utilities, and other operations. These loans can be forgiven if used for those purposes. This new eligibility has been a key element of the CREATE Act we’ve been pursuing;
• $10 billion for Emergency Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) for loans up to $10,000 for small businesses and nonprofits to be used for providing paid sick leave for employees, maintaining payroll, mortgage/rent payments, and other operating costs;
• Expanded Unemployment Insurance (UI) that includes coverage for furloughed workers, freelancers, and “gig economy” workers. The bill also increases UI payments by $600/week for four months, in addition to what one claims under a state unemployment program.

Charitable Giving Tax Deduction

• An “above-the-line” or universal charitable giving incentive for contributions made in 2020 of up to $300. This provision will now allow all non-itemizer taxpayers (close to 90% of all taxpayers) to deduct charitable contributions from their tax return, an incentive previously unavailable to them. Additionally, the stimulus legislation lifts the existing cap on annual contributions for itemizers from 60 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) to 100 percent of AGI for contributions made in 2020.