Private foundations and organizations are stepping up to fill in the funding gaps caused by recent cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts and other government-run cultural organizations.
Cultural organizations across the United States have had to adjust to a new, turbulent reality. Despite accounting for only 0.003% of the federal government’s budget, the Trump administration has focused itself on gutting the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and other state-funded cultural services. The administration’s attempts at dismantling these nonpartisan and nonprofit organizations appear in poor taste. This seems especially true since some of the money will be diverted towards the administration’s proposed National Garden of American Heroes project. The garden, which has been one of Trump’s cultural policy goals since 2020, will consist of a sculpture garden featuring two hundred fifty statues of prominent Americans. Some see it as a benign monument, while others see it as a needless, jingoistic endeavor. Many have been paying more attention to Trump’s cultural policy, especially following executive orders targeting the Smithsonian Institution.
The funding cuts included cutting the NEA’s Challenge America grants, which provided money for small to mid-size cultural programs in underserved communities. The beneficiaries are often in rural areas and/or provide arts programs by and for children, the elderly, women, people of color, queer people, and other vulnerable groups. After the administration made these cuts in February, the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation have pledged $800,000 to compensate. In a statement, Warhol Foundation president Joel Wachs remarked that “we see the extremely difficult circumstances under which they are operating and we value and appreciate their work. We are committed to providing some semblance of stability and continuity during this time of unprecedented upheaval.” The Warhol-Frankenthaler joint donation comes about a week after an even more significant move by the Mellon Foundation.
The Mellon Foundation is the single largest non-governmental source of arts funding in the United States. At the end of April, the foundation announced it would donate $15 million to the Federation of State Humanities Councils, which had much of its funding cut by the controversial Department of Government Efficiency. This significant donation will provide a substantial boost to the humanities councils of all fifty states and six territories, including Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and others, each of which will receive $200,000. The remaining $2.8 million is being withheld as challenge grants. This is where the money will only be dispersed to match $50,000 in other donations that these councils can raise by themselves. For some of these organizations, the money they receive from the Mellon Foundation will not be as much as expected from the NEA, but it’s not nothing, either. However, foundation president Phoebe Stein describes this money as “a lifeline for communities across the country who rely on their humanities councils’ programs and grants to fill critical needs and enrich their lives.” Before the Mellon donations, about 40% of state humanities councils had less than six months of funding in their reserves. The money from these private foundations can prove useful in extending these groups’ funding until they can formulate a more long-term solution.