CLEVELAND (November 10, 2021) – Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) will invest $11,613,452 in 249 Cuyahoga County nonprofit organizations in 2022 through its General Operating Support, Project Support and the new Cultural Heritage grant programs. Since 2006, CAC has invested more than $218 million in 445 organizations.
The grants were approved by CAC’s Board of Trustees during a public meeting on Wednesday, November 10th. A diverse panel of outside arts and cultural experts in September reviewed and scored the grant applications.
“We are excited to invest nearly $12 million into arts and culture organizations across Cuyahoga County. Our agency feels it is important to keep our grantmaking as steady and as transparent as possible for our grantees, especially because the past 18 months have been so difficult financially for them, and these grants represent our sustained support,” said Jill M. Paulsen, CAC’s executive director. “We are very grateful to these 249 organizations that have kept arts and culture alive for county residents during the pandemic. Their creativity, commitment to their mission and resilience are top notch.”
CAC’s General Operating Support program provides unrestricted, multi-year support grants to arts and cultural organizations based in and serving Cuyahoga County. Grants range from $14,000 to $1.2 million and support nonprofits that have a primary mission to provide arts or cultural services for the public. For the past three years, CAC has kept steady its investment in the General Operating Support program despite declining revenues, providing $10.2 million to 69 organizations. CAC welcomed four new organizations to General Operating Support for 2022: Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society, Collective Arts Network and Doan Brook Watershed Partnership.
The Project Support grant program promotes and encourages the breadth of arts and cultural programming in our community by funding projects of all sizes in Cuyahoga County. Grants range from $800 to $18,333 and support a variety of programs and events. CAC granted a total of $1,198,438 in Project Support for 2022 to 169 organizations.
New for 2022, the Cultural Heritage grant program provide flexible funding for organizations with a primary mission of arts and culture that are representative of a culturally-specific population. 11 organizations will share $215,014 in 2022.
Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) is one of the largest local public funders for arts and culture in the nation, helping hundreds of organizations in Cuyahoga County connect millions of people to cultural experiences each year. Since 2006, CAC has invested more than $218 million in 445 organizations both large and small, making our community a more vibrant place to live, work and play. For more information, visit cacgrants.org.
About the author
CAC Staff