By Howard Pousner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Responding to tense financial times, the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund is announcing $500,000 in grants to a dozen groups today as part of what it is calling the Atlanta Arts Recovery initiative.

Georgia Ballet and Horizon Theatre Company will receive the biggest grants — $75,000 each — at a Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre luncheon. The Atlanta Shakespeare Company and the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia will receive $65,000 each.

The Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, part of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, has given out 153 grants totaling more than $6.5 million to small and midsize organizations since 1993. This year marks the first time it has awarded a second round of grants.

Earlier this year, the Arts Fund announced that it was raising $2.5 million for the Atlanta Arts Recovery initiative, in answer to what fund director Lisa Cremin called a “perfect storm of financial challenges” for cultural organizations. Those challenges include simultaneous reductions in foundation giving, corporate sponsorships, governmental support and performance ticket income, she said.

The circumstances vary “from organization to organization,” Cremin said Tuesday. “For some, it’s extremely severe and they are doing all they can possibly do. Every organization is working incredibly hard, and the ones that seem to be thriving are the ones that are experimenting. ... They’re getting more artistic programming out there, using different tactics to reach audiences.

“And what makes all of this so challenging is that these were organizations that were lean before the markets fell so dramatically.”

The other eight groups being awarded grants today are Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and Cobb Symphony Orchestra ($50,000 each), Spruill Center for the Arts ($40,000), Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus ($30,000), Michael O’Neal Singers ($17,000), Out of Hand Theater ($15,000), Johns Creek Arts Center ($10,000) and Atlanta Sacred Chorale ($8,000).

In this new round, the grants are being given for general operating support instead of the traditional practice of giving awards for specific initiatives.

“We trust our nonprofit partners to know where they need to invest the dollars and how to use the funds where they are most appropriate,” Community Foundation president Alicia Philipp said in a prepared statement.

Cremin said applications for Arts Recovery initiative grants were nearly a third higher than typical. “The need is very significant,” she said.

Recovery initiative grants also will be offered in fall 2010 and possibly in fall 2011, if fund-raising is sufficient. So far, $2.1 million has been raised toward the $2.5 million goal from donors including the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, the Zeist Foundation, the Kendeda Fund, Bank of America and the fund’s advisory board.

Beyond the monetary grants, the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund is increasing the total of its annual “Toolbox” Awards, which provide management consulting packages in conjunction with the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, from $100,000 to $150,000.

It’s also increasing the maximum on loans being offered to arts groups annually, from $25,000 to $40,000. The funds can be used to create business and revenue or as short-term bridge loans to cover cash shortages.

The arts fund has raised the eligible maximum budget size of grantees to $2 million, to make support available to a larger number of organizations across the 23-county region.

The fund’s endowment balance, as of June 30, was $6.2 million.

“We believe that in these tough times, the arts offer audiences the opportunity to look at the world in a different way,” Cremin said, “and to feel more hope about your options.”

$500,000 will go
to local organizations.

Recovery initiative to help in ‘perfect storm’
of financial challenges.