Ohio Arts Council signs largest grant funding in its history
By: Arielle Lyons
Posted on:
ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — The Ohio Arts Council, or OAC, has approved a $21.8 million grant for hundreds of arts organizations throughout the state.
This marks the largest amount of grant dollars ever distributed to constituents in OAC’s history.
Dozens of Southeast Ohio arts entities received grants from the OAC. Twenty grants were given in Athens County alone.
Other Southeast Ohio arts organizations that received grants include the Lancaster Festival, the Ohio Glass Museum, the Zanesville Museum of Art and the Southern Ohio Museum Corp.
Four categories and eight subcategories of grants were classified in the release. Sustainability for operating support is the largest funded subcategory at $16 million. According to a press release from OAC, these awards “support the state’s arts and cultural ecosystem, providing stable and consistent funding to organizations regardless of budget size.” The other listed categories are Project Support, Arts Learning and Individual Artists.
After sustainability, the next most funded subcategories are TeachArtsOhio at $2.3 million, which “brings schools and community organizations together with teaching artists to share engaging, personal, high-quality arts learning experiences,” and ArtsNEXT at over $1 million, which “provides competitive funding for innovative and experimental projects.”
OAC Executive Director Donna S. Collins was quoted in the release saying “Ohio’s arts and culture sector is poised for a strong future as we continue to work together for a full recovery of in-person arts programming, an expansion of arts education to combat pandemic-related learning loss, and restoration and growth of career opportunities for arts professionals.”