Mass. arts organizations upended as NEA claws back promised funds

Ashleigh Gordon knew something was wrong when Castle of Our Skins' approved grant application suddenly disappeared from the National Endowment for the Arts portal. If she hadn’t made a copy, there would be no evidence her organization had even applied.

The Boston-based arts institution committed to elevating Black music discovered Friday night, following a concert, that they would no longer receive an estimated $20,000 in funding. They are one of many arts organizations across the region reeling after thousands of dollars in federal funding from the NEA have been terminated or eliminated.

“ We were in performance mode doing what we do, which is celebrating all things Blackness,” said Gordon, who co-founded the organization. “Definitely on a high coming off of a performance and a really great positive week. So, [this is] a gut punch.”

The NEA began notifying grantees over the weekend that approved funding no longer falls in line with the agency’s priorities.

The funds Castle of Our Skins sought would have gone toward the MassQ Ball, an annual event held in the Arnold Arboretum described as a  ”cornucopia of arts and culture traditions from people of color,” said co-creator and multimedia artist Daniel Callahan. He finds it surreal they have to justify a free public event that gives access to green space while showcasing the arts.

“It’s also somewhat of a badge of honor in a very strange way,” he said. “That we would be targeted by this administration seems to make a lot of sense and kind of tells us that we're moving in the right direction.”

Boards are now holding emergency meetings to determine next steps, not just for the rest of the fiscal year, but for the remaining years of the current administration. Some organizations already spent the promised federal funds, leaving gaps in their budgets that will not be reimbursed.

“ It's not just our name brand global ambassador arts organizations,” said Emily Ruddock, executive director of MASCreative. "It's organizations that are making sure your kid has access to a music lesson after school. It's organizations that are hosting festivals on the weekends…that animate our neighborhoods and our main streets and city centers. Everyone is going to be affected by this.”

(WBUR is among the organizations that received a termination notice for an NEA grant in support of CitySpace programming.)

In its most recent budget proposal, the Trump administration is attempting to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities as Trump tried to do during his first term. Most of the staff at the National Endowment for the Humanities and all staff at the Institute for Museum and Library Services have been placed on administrative leave in recent weeks.

“The Trump administration continues to make rash and reckless decisions that threaten the economic livelihoods of countless creative workers and threaten the cultural fabric of our society,” said Rep. Sean Garballey, House Chair of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development in a statement.

“Here in Massachusetts, the House of Representatives demonstrates our support to the creative sector through continued annual funding to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Mass Humanities, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, and other grantmaking organizations. Although as a state we will not be able to make up for all federal cuts, we will continue to work with our arts and cultural organizations as they assess the full impact these federal cuts will have on the creative economy.”

BalletRox, a dance school in Jamaica Plain, learned in January that the NEA approved a $30,000 grant to support their organization. On Friday night, they received an email that the money wasn’t coming. The grant makes up 10% of their budget for the next fiscal year and supports their scholarship program.

The organization teaches students in Boston Public Schools, offers reduced tuition, and provides all of the dance supplies. They are now determining fundraising priorities and what they need to do to make it to the end of the year.

”We were expecting these funds to maintain our scholarship program in the fall,” said Jane Allard, BalletRox board president. “Now that's at risk.”

BalletRox barely survived the pandemic, Allard said. And they did so with the help of government grants. Allard knows firsthand how important financial support is to dancers since she received scholarships herself. The mission of BalletRox is to give students a chance to pursue dance by reducing the cost and other barriers.

“It's a moment for who we are as a society. What do the arts mean to us?” Allard said. "A lot of arts organizations just live on the edge, we live on a shoestring and any disturbance can really impact them.”

Boston Center for the Arts announced in March that it received a $50,000 NEA grant. This money was earmarked to support their "incoming residency cohort of more than 50 artists." They were notified by email that the grant had been rescinded due to an “administrative review.”

“This loss is significant, not only to BCA and the artists we serve, but also as part of a broader pattern of shrinking public investment in the arts," said Kristi Keefe, CEO of Boston Center for the Arts in a statement to WBUR. "As government support for cultural work becomes increasingly vulnerable, the stability of organizations like ours, and the creative communities we support, is being put at real risk."

MASS MoCA’s $50,000 grant to support Jeffrey Gibson’s large-scale commission “POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT” was terminated on Friday. The exhibit has been on view since last fall and the grant was approved to be awarded at that time. Museum leadership expected the funds in the spring. Their grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services was also terminated, which should have been a reimbursement of $101,000 for technology training for staff. Finally, they heard Tuesday that their NEH grant was also terminated. They're appealing both the NEA and IMLS letters.

“In reading our notification multiple times, I am struck by the words being used, how important they are to absorb, and is why I am sharing them here with you,” wrote museum director Kristy Edmunds to museum supporters.

“Please take a moment and read that last sentence again…'no longer serves the interest of the United States…' The loss of these crucial funding awards for projects at MASS MoCA (pending appeals) is real and will throw us into greater financial strain.”

The Melrose-based nonprofit Filmmakers Collaborative lost two federal grants within a month, according to executive director Laura Azevedo. They were notified in early April that the final $50,000 installment of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant awarded in 2022 would not be coming. That funding was earmarked to complete a documentary about work being done to decipher 2,000-year-old scrolls found buried in a town called Herculaneum following the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

The film's producer traveled to California to record an interview with one of the winners of a contest that was partially funded by the Musk Foundation. Three students found a way to use AI to recover passages from charred ancient scrolls unearthed in Herculaneum. The student interviewed was a 23-year-old engineer named Luke Farritor. He is now on staff in Musk's Department of Government Efficiency initiative. Due to cuts, the producer is scrambling to secure last-minute funding.

“ The people that were responsible for this film may not finish because they took the money away,” Azevedo said. “Somebody decided, Musk, whoever, to just shut the spigot off entirely without paying attention to who is being affected.”

The National Endowment for the Arts grant the Filmmakers Collaborative lost this past weekend is a smaller sum, but the impact no less significant. It goes to supplement their FC Academy, where they teach kids from kindergarten to middle school how to make short films, and then screen them at the Boston International Kids Film Festival.

These grants specifically help them bring the program to underserved communities around Roxbury, Mattapan and Lowell.

”They tell pretty amazing stories,” Azevedo said. “We try to encourage students that the best storytelling is your story because nobody else can tell it. And so those are really the most meaningful films that we make with these kids. And to think that somebody just decided it's no longer in the one of the president's priorities that these kids get to do that is really infuriating.”