Cultural Solidarity Fund Executes Over $1,000,000 In Relief Grants To Artists Impacted By Covid-19

The organizers of the Cultural Solidarity Fund have released a new report entitled From Regranting to Redistribution: How the Cultural Solidarity Fund Moved Money & Why We Need Community-Centered Coalitions. This report, written by Sruti Suryanarayanan with Emma Werowinski, explains how the Cultural Solidarity Fund executed over $1,000,0000 in relief grants to individual artists and cultural workers across New York City. Supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of Gonzalo Casals two-year fellowship on Research and Policy with the foundation, this report is part of a cohort of research projects that investigate alternative ways in which government and private philanthropy can support individual artists and small-budget organizations.

In the spirit of coalition and resource sharing, NYC arts and cultural organizations of all sizes and structures came together to grow a joint Cultural Solidarity Fund, which provides $500 relief microgrants to NYC artists and cultural workers. To date, they have raised over one million dollars, serving 2,030 impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over 20 administrators and cultural workers who organized the Cultural Solidarity Fund translated their lived experiences into a model, the Money Moving Coalition, that can challenge economic inequality across times of crisis. As of the publication of the report, the Cultural Solidarity Fund is still fundraising to ensure they can process grants for the remaining 204 applicants, with 42% self-reporting an urgency level of four out of five, and all facing childcare, financial, food, housing, and/or medical insecurity. 

The act of moving this amount of money alone is a feat to celebrate but the organizers of the Cultural Solidarity Fund also accomplished this during a time of peak crisis and as a coalition of individuals and organizations, many of whom had no previous experience moving money and who had never met before. Whether as an individual member of a dance company or as the former lead of a state arts organization, every organizer of the Cultural Solidarity Fund had lived experience as an artist and knew what it was like to be in need of financial support, and committed to sustaining a movement for an equitable arts ecosystem. CSF’s organizers built a responsive, equitable, and reproducible process for redistributing money and the report offers a toolkit to aid other individuals or organizations interested in building their own Money Moving Coalition. 

“We are thrilled to finally share this important report and we hope it provides practical, time-saving tools to other organizers and compels people to act,” said CSF Research Guides and Founding Organizers Haley Andres, Michelle Amador, Randi Berry, Ximena Garnica. “Ultimately though, our hope with this report is to engage readers in helping us close the remaining gap in funding our applicants and achieve the cultural solidarity that inspired us to organize initially. We hope every person reading this report sees the opportunity within themselves, against all odds, against a scarcity mindset, to get involved.” 

“The Cultural Solidarity Fund exemplifies how we can approach things differently,” said Gonzalo Casals. “Programs informed by solidarity, mutual aid, equity, and collective leadership not only work, but also significantly impact the way we support and resource the sector. At a time when the lasting effects of the pandemic on how we live, work, and relate to one another are becoming apparent, it feels as though we have lost our way out of this crisis. It is my hope that From Regranting to Redistribution: How the Cultural Solidarity Fund Moved Money & Why We Need Community-Centered Coalitions will guide us toward a model where trust, care, and selflessness are at the heart of our decision-making.”

The Cultural Solidarity Fund (CSF) is an initiative administered by IndieSpace (formerly Indie Theater Fund) with leadership by LEIMAY with a coalition of arts administrators and institutions that provides relief microgrants of $500 to artists and cultural workers including individual artists, administrators, production staff, custodians, art educators, ushers, guards, and more and prioritizes Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), immigrant, disabled, d/Deaf, and trans and gender-nonconforming individuals who have been most severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The CSF Organizing Group included the following organizations and individuals: Dancewave | Nicole Touzien, Dance Parade | DJ McDonald, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute I Melody Capote, Elevator Repair Service I Mark Rossier, HERE| Meredith Lynsey Schade, Hi-ARTS I Hanna Stubblefield-Tave, Limón Dance Company, National Dance Institute I Juan José Escalante, LEIMAY| Ximena Garnica, Mark Morris Dance Group I Michelle Amador and Haley Mason Andres, NYC & Company l Carianne Carleo-Evangelist, New Yorkers for Culture and Arts I Laurie Berg and Lucy Sexton, Performance Space New York I Paula Bennett, Ted Berger, Theater for a New Audience I Dorothy Ryan, The Bushwick Starr I Lauren Miller, The Indie Theater Fund/IndieSpace | Randi Berry. Additional early support: ADVANCE/MORE Opera I Cheryl Warfield, Bronx Arts Ensemble| Ellen Pollan.

The evaluation report, From Regranting to Redistribution: How the Cultural Solidarity Fund Moved Money & Why We Need Community-Centered Coalitions, was made possible through a grant from the Mellon Foundation. The report was edited and guided by Haley Andres, Michelle Amador, Randi Berry, and Ximena Garnica with Lead Researchers Emma Werowinski and Sruti Suryanarayanan. Special acknowledgment goes to Gonzalo Casals for inviting CSF to join a cohort of research projects that investigate alternative ways to support individual artists and small-budget organizations. This research project advocates for the CSF and coalition-based work throughout NYC. This research draws upon interviews and conversations with 34+ artists and cultural workers. None of this work would be possible without the care, compassion, and commitment of the CSF Organizer’s Group.