$3 Million in Arts Grants Despite L.A. Budget Cuts : Endowment to Fund 263 Groups, Artists

In a recessionary year rife with city budget cuts, 1991-92 Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts grants have survived virtually uncut at $3 million.

Grants to artists and arts organizations will be formally announced by the Cultural Affairs Department on July 7. The grants range from $95,000 each for the L.A. Music Center Opera and L.A. Philharmonic Assn. to $1,500 each for small arts groups such as Donna Sternberg & Dancers and the Debussy Trio Music Foundation.

A total of 263 grants--amounting to more than $2.8 million--will be distributed across 10 disciplines to 97 institutions, 94 community arts organizations and 72 individuals. Another $155,075 has been set aside for future 1991-92 awards, including soon-to-be-determined development grants for mid-size multicultural groups and grants awarded on appeals.

“People in this city respect the need to fund artists,” said Adolfo V. Nodal, Cultural Affairs general manager, referring to recent lengthy City Council budget debates in which the arts grants recommended by his department were approved by the council with no changes or reductions.

Nodal noted that his department, which also runs city arts centers and produces citywide festivals and other programs, places its highest priority on the much-heralded grants program, which will take a large chunk of his department’s nearly $8.8-million 1991-92 budget. City taxes on hotels and motels are major sources of funding for the endowment.

“Our major commitment is getting money to artists. We had said that (the cultural grants) would never go below the threshold of $3 million, even if we had to cut some of our own programs,” Nodal said. He noted that while his department fared well in the overall budget process, there were some previously reported cuts, such as reduced hours at some city arts centers, the elimination of a popular lecture program and the loss of two staff positions.

The 1991-92 grants mark several firsts for the city, including a new appeals process, in which $55,075 has been set aside for appeals on the grounds that technicalities--not aesthetics--may have influenced the judging. Such technicalities include incomplete applications or possible conflicts of interests on the peer panels.

Also new this year is an allocation of $100,000 for “development” grants, which Nodal said will be distributed among six or more mid-size multicultural organizations “as a nest egg to help them stabilize themselves, grow and, in effect, institutionalize themselves.”

The development grants are the first step toward a major “stabilization” program that Nodal hopes to start next year. Rather than have a group receive a varying amount of funding annually (which happens now as separate “peer panels” meet each year to allocate grants), he plans to eventually have the panels award multiyear grants to selected institutions and groups to help in long-range planning and budgeting.

Nodal said he hopes to eventually establish multiyear grants for large institutions with budgets of more than $1 million, mid-size multicultural organizations that have not been able to catch up with the large institutions, and service organizations that assist artists or other arts groups. Within the same plan, Nodal hopes to start a loan program, in which short-term loans would be available for groups that “get in a lurch somehow or have some kind of new initiative which needs additional funding.”

Other changes made in the grants program this year include revamped funding categories.

Before, categories for established organizations and emerging groups pitted huge institutions such as the Music Center and the L.A. County Museum with smaller but established groups such as East L.A.’s Self-Help Graphics or the East West Players. Now, organizational grants are divided between larger institutions and community-based groups, and then judged in each discipline, with funds divided among the disciplines according to the number of grant applications received in each discipline.

Still judged separately--and also by discipline--are individual artists, who received more than $500,000 of the L.A. Endowment grants pie. Recipients include theater writer/director/producer Reza Abdoh ($12,500), actress Jude Narita ($15,000), performance artists Dan Kwong ($8,365) and Rika Ohara ($8,333), and visual artists Deborah Lawrence ($5,800) and Kim Abeles ($5,000).

In 1990-91, the first full year in which the endowment was in effect, a total of $3,011,794 in cultural grants were distributed.

In addition to 1991-92 Cultural Affairs grants, the department has budgeted nearly $1.6 million in “festivals funding” that will go to both city-produced events and outside organizations, such as Artes de Mexico ($25,000), Black Choreographers Looking Toward the 21st Century ($10,000) and the Deaf Arts Festival ($20,000).

L.A. Endowment Grants

1991-’92 (Total Grants $2,844,925)

Visual Arts: $316,537 (11.13%)

Urban Design: $52,100 (1.83%)

Theater: $518,416 (18.22%)

Service Groups: $188,450 (6.62%)

Music: $510,947 (17.96%)

Dance: $218,405 (7.68%)

Folk Arts: $167,000 (5.87%)

Interdisciplinary: $466,370 (16.39%)

Literary Arts: $58,700 (2.06%)

Media Arts: $348,000 (12.23%)

Note: $55,075 is appropriated for appeals and $100,000 for development grants, bringing the total to $3 million.

L.A.’s Top Awardees

The top grants awarded by the Cultural Affairs Department for 1993: Los Angeles Music Center Opera: $95,000

Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn.: $95,000

L.A. County Museum of Art: $50,000

Craft and Folk Art Museum: $45,000

Japanese American Cultural and Community Center: $45,000

KCET Channel 28: $45,000

Southwest Museum: $45,000

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions: $42,000

Center Theatre Group: $40,000

We Tell Stories: $36,800

Los Angeles Festival: $35,000

Bilingual Foundation for the Arts: $35,000

Odyssey Theater Ensemble: $35,000

Visual Communications, Southern California Asian American Studies: $35,000

Arts Inc.: $35,000

Source: Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department