COVID-19: Accessing Federal Relief

NEFA info

On March 27, 2020, the $2 trillion CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) was passed by Congress. We want to encourage artists, cultural organizations, and creative businesses to access these benefits during this challenging time. Individuals: As the unemployment rate increases, state unemployment offices may be overwhelmed; find your state’s unemployment office website and start the process early. Organizations: Support may be accessed through the SBA’s Disaster Loan Assistance and the Treasury Department’s Paycheck Protection Program. Visit NEFA’s COVID-19 page for more information and related links.

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The CARES package includes $300 million in economic relief to support nonprofit cultural organizations like museums, libraries, public broadcasting, and state and local arts and humanities agencies, as well as for nonprofit organizations and small businesses. It also includes $260 billion in enhanced and expanded unemployment insurance (UI) to thousands of creative workers throughout the country who are being furloughed, laid off, or finding themselves without work through no fault of their own. Most of the COVID-19 economic relief funding will be distributed through state UI programs.

Art and Music From Belfast High School

Sharing their passion

At Point Lookout in Northport on a beautiful day in February the Maine Arts Commission provided an opportunity to hear about Maine’s most recent arts and cultural economic impact data from two studies. Speaker Randy Cohen, Vice President for Research and Policy at Americans for the Arts (AFTA) shared the national Arts and Economic Prosperity 5(AEP5). Dee Schneidman from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) shared the highlights of The Jobs in New England’s Creative Economy and Why They Matter.

In addition, Arts EngageME was introduced, the nonprofit support and advocacy organization.  The organization is building an environment that engages all sectors, public and private, across Maine to promote the awareness and value of the creative and cultural sectors, and to invest in their sustainability. We envision a state that values the impact of arts and culture on Maine’s livability, vitality, and prosperity.

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We were honored to have beautiful center pieces created by students from the Art Honor Society at Belfast High School. Thanks to art teachers Caitlin Algers and Heidi O’Donnell. Music teacher David Coffey brought four musicians from his  Modern Band class. The  students learn to play and sing, perform, improvise and compose using the popular styles that they know (and don’t know) and love (and might come to love) including rock, pop, reggae, hip hop, country and other modern styles. Modern band utilizes guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, vocals, and technology. They were awesome. The students included Jesse Kulbe, guitar and vocals, Macartney Wyatt, keyboard and vocals, Taylor Kinney, bass, and Jesse Perry, drums. All four students are seniors at Belfast High School. Thank you all for your contributions to remind those who attended what the reports are really all about – students and the future!

Dance Moving

Watching dance move forward

During the last three days the blog posts have been about the dance education residency that happened during December 2016 in MSAD #33.  The “Hopes for the Future” funding came about thanks to the Thornton Academy dance program and seven dance programs in southern Maine. Almost $3,000 was awarded to MSAD #33 in Aroostook county where students in K-12 benefited from the expertise of a teaching dance artist. This year over $3,500 was raised by this same group of programs at a performance at Thornton Academy.

Next month another school will be having a performance and contributing the funds to the “Hopes for the Future” to provide dance education grants to other schools/districts. The Maine Arts Commission (MAC)will administer this grant. Please watch for the information on this blog and the weekly MAC arts ed list-serv.

Photo from the NEFA site. Click on the tag line below for the information.

The information below is from the New England Foundation for the Arts and is about how dance is moving forward.

In November 2016, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) released a report by Metris Arts Consulting, entitled Moving Dance Forward: NEFA’s National Dance Project at 20 & Critical Field Trends. The report is located at http://www.nefa.org/moving-dance-forward.

The report is a comprehensive evaluation of the National Dance Project, incorporating new research about current needs of the dance field on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the program.

Major findings and trends of significance to the field include:

• NDP’s intertwined support for creation and touring has provided robust and sustained support in an environment of increasing resource scarcity and rising costs; investing in artists to make work is regarded as the highest priority for the program.
• Dance presenters credit NDP support with improving their reputation locally, their knowledge of dance, and enabling them to take risks by introducing new artists to their audiences.
• Data reveals NDP has consistently supported artists of color, but focus group findings speak to continued systemic inequities that exclude some artists and ways NEFA and other grantmakers can further equitable and inclusive grant-making.
• Artists tour to an average of six communities for each five-year period of NDP’s grantmaking from 1996-2016, revealing that tour subsidies are a high-impact bulwark to a field-wide decline in touring opportunities over the past two decades.
• Touring is no longer motivated by economic considerations; instead, artists are primarily motivated to tour to connect with new audiences, and organizations cite mission-based commitments and dance’s ability to connect audiences to diverse cultures and ideas.
• Artists and organizations value community engagement as an important component of touring and foresee deepening this practice over the next five to ten years.

The full report may be found online at www.nefa.org/moving-dance-forward.