“San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has announced a ‘Shared Prosperity for the Arts Package.’ Over the next two years, the city will contribute $7 million to programs supporting the arts,” writes Mark MacNamara in Monday’s (6/1) San Francisco Classical Voice. Included in the plan is “a $2 million enhancement to the Cultural Equity Endowment Fund and $1 million to Grants for the Arts, which supports small and mid-sized arts nonprofits, individual artists, and historically underserved communities. The package also includes a $3.8 million capital investment in the city’s Civic Art Collection and Cultural Centers, and additional funding for arts education…. City-owned cultural centers that stand to benefit from the package include the African American Arts and Culture Complex, the Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and SOMArts…. Says Adam Fong, executive director of the Center for New Music, ‘In the last decade, San Francisco’s overall budget has grown roughly 70 percent while its arts budget dropped 30 percent. This announcement begins to correct [that] … Music nonprofits tend to be smaller and more reliant on contributed income, as compared to arts nonprofits supporting other genres of work.’ ”
Posted June 2, 2015
