After the Trump administration cancelled National Endowment for the Arts grants across the country, Bay Area arts organizations are scrambling to ensure their creative futures.
On a May 26 Zoom call, Bay Area administrators convened by San Francisco International Arts Festival shared different strategies for facing recent NEA grant cancelations and other dire cuts to arts funding.
Art Solidarity Action, a collective that meets monthly to form a grassroots response to cuts to art funding, and includes participation from Bridge Live Arts (which has been posting information about the gatherings), Flyaway Productions, and Circo Zero, is starting a series of conversations with private philanthropic foundations, including Zellerbach, Fleishhacker, and Hewlett regarding emergency funding response.
Several administrators on the call expressed support for a designated day of action to raise awareness over the dire situation, and made proposals for regional solidarity, as well as reaching out to red state-based organizations that could have more sway over Republican Party policy decisions. Unity was the word of the day for those facing very uncertain futures.
Curtain drops on funds for performing arts
The bad news isn’t just coming from a federal level.
Funding situations for many arts organizations only became more dire on May 14, when Governor Gavin Newsom announced the reversion of $11.5 million in the 2025-’26 state budget that had been allocated—but not yet disbursed—to the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund.
“We’re delivering bold proposals to build more housing, lower costs for working families, and invest in our kids,” Newsom said in a statement announcing his May revision proposal.
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The PAEPF was meant to support small non-profit performing arts organizations, and had just opened up and then closed its first round of applications after 10 days in March, due to overwhelming response.
Now, its application review process has been halted, and the program appears to have been canceled.
On Thursday, Assemblymember Matt Haney held a press conference at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts asking fellow lawmakers to reject the cuts.
“California’s identity is rooted in creativity,” he was reported as saying in a press statement. “These small venues aren’t luxuries—they’re cornerstones of local life.”
Amid the legislative budget listening phase, California Arts Advocates has launched a letter-writing campaign and website, as has SF Bay Area Theatre Company, in the hopes of saving the PAEPF before the June 15 deadline for a final reconciled state budget.
“The Governor’s proposed cuts are a serious blow to an already vulnerable industry,” said CAA CEO Julie Baker at the Thursday event. “California’s arts community has already suffered over $70 million in state funding reductions since 2023, placing us at a dismal 35th nationally for per capita arts funding. The Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund was in progress—funds allocated, applications under review from 88% of the Legislative districts—when this cut was proposed.”
During the city’s own budget process in December, Oakland arts organizations saw devastating cuts made to the Cultural Affairs Commission, impacting everything from the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park to Prescott Circus after-school programs and day laborer theater group Teatro Jornalero, and decimating organizational assistance grants.
Mayor’s Office has no new plans
Additional funding help for San Francisco arts organizations seems unlikely to come from Mayor Daniel Lurie. Under his recently proposed budget, the San Francisco Arts Commission is set to lose a large part of its budget over the next two years, as it is combined with Grants for the Arts and the Film Commission. When contacted for response by 48hills the week after the NEA grant cancellations—which affected city arts organizations and institutions at every level—were announced, spokesperson Charles Lutvak asked, “Are there organizations in the city that are impacted?”
When advised that at least 28 local groups had experienced the termination of grants, the publication was directed to Coma Te, director of communications for the Arts Commission, who replied on May 9 with a rundown of the city’s previous record on art grants:
San Francisco is committed to supporting our local artists and arts organizations through our various grantmaking programs administered by the Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts.
The Arts Commission will continue to support as many local artists and arts organizations that we can through our Community Investments grants program with funding made possible by Hotel Tax (Prop E) funds, part of which is guided by our 2024-2029 Cultural Services Allocation Plan. It is crucial for us to help those that make San Francisco so special and unique as an international arts and cultural hub, especially now when funding sources for many arts organizations are being rescinded.
In FY-2024, the Arts Commission awarded $11.3m to 159 arts nonprofits and individual artists. An additional $3.7 million in funding support was also awarded to the 7 cultural centers. This investment in San Francisco’s arts ecosystem supported 76 San Francisco-based individual artists and 83 local arts nonprofits.
At our most recent Arts Commission meeting on May 5, an estimated $7.57m in grant funding was approved by the Commission, (this is planned to be formally announced July 1) that will go to support approximately 147 arts nonprofits and individual artists for FY-2025.
Te also forwarded a guide to organizational response from the National Council of Non-Profits, which included information on reviewing grant language, understanding what federal laws govern grant terminations, and covering close-out costs.
The sudden cuts may seem to leave artists to fend for themselves, forced to compete against one another for ever-dwindling support for the arts. But Andrew Wood of the San Francisco International Arts Festival emphasized the power of unity in the face of adversity on the Zoom call. “Whatever we do or don’t do, we have to do it as a group,” he said.