There’s no shortage of government agencies whose work remains largely obscure to the average citizen. Big money, like in the case of an infrastructure bill, can certainly bring high-profile projects. But less expensive things that might not get as much notice can often have significant results, too.
To be sure, the National Endowment for the Arts is one of those agencies that usually flies below the radar of most people. Unless there’s some sort of fanned flames of controversy it’s rarely given much of a thought. Relative to other departments in the government, it’s pretty small. The President’s 2022 budget allocated $201 million for the agency. It would be its highest budget since 1992 and its first of over $200 million.
The NEA sends almost all its money out in the form of grants to local and regional arts organizations. Through what it spends, the agency tries to reach as many different areas of the country as possible, and when it funds projects in small communities, it can make a very big difference.
Former head Dana Gioia was the first to make it a de facto policy to extend the Endowment’s presence to as many different
congressional districts as possible. He wanted to build support in Congress by having representatives from all across the country see how the Endowment works in their own communities.
Last month, it made its first round of grants for this year, giving 1,498 of them totaling nearly $33.2 million. Every now and then, to get a scope of what the Endowment is doing I’ll go to their website where they list every one of their grants. It’s very interesting.
In this latest round, arts organizations here in Texas received 77 grants totaling $1,746,000. Of all 50 states, Texas received the 4th most grants behind only New York, California, and Illinois. Organizations in our neighboring states received fewer grants in this round: Oklahoma and Arkansas each received 6; Louisiana 13; New Mexico 24.
And Endowment money went all over the state. Big cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio all had multiple organizations receiving grants. But groups in much smaller places got funding, too: from Abilene to Albany, from Mesquite to Laredo, and here in Waco, Creative Waco just got a sizeable grant.
Most of the grants are in the range of $10,000, although there are some larger ones. For a small theater company in Cleburne or a museum in Beaumont that money from the Endowment can be the difference between life and death. That is, the difference between continuing to reach people in their communities and not being able to.
