An Arts Initiative subcommittee of the County Commission for
Arts and Culture has started a series of meeting to advise staff how the $2.75
million can be fairly distributed to the artist and arts community of San Diego
county.
As a reminder the County Board of supervisors voted to give
the following amounts
·
$1 million annually for direct artist
grants
·
$500,000 for affordable creative spaces
·
$250,000 for artist residencies within
County departments
·
$250,000 for binational arts investment in
the San Diego–Baja California region
·
A one-time $500,000 investment in the
Black Arts & Culture District
·
Creation of policy for Arts & Cultural Districts, with
no funding but hopes for money from private sources.
·
$250,000 for of these new grant programs. There is currently one full-time staff
member Christine Jones and administrative funds will be used for an one year intern position of $67K.
An overall plan was presented by Ms. Jones with five
phases. Phase one is finished as that is directed by the supervisors. They are now in Phase 2 to sort out how the
all this will function. Phase 3 is agreeing and building out the programs
including Key Features of each one, Application and review process and Evaluation
Criteria and that should be completed in early fall. Phase 4 is to launch the
programs and phase 5 is evaluating as this is money for five years of fund.
($2.25 million per year through 2030)
They hope to launch the first three programs before the end
of the year. That includes:
Fieldwork: Practice Based Artist
funding $1 million
SPACE: Art Centered working studios and showing spaces $500K
SD AIR: Artist in Residence $250K
The one-time funding of $500K is an investment in the
Black Arts & Culture District which has its own board and plan and will simple be reporting back to
the County Commission. Binational
arts investment in the San Diego–Baja California region for $250K was not discussed fully because the county binational liaison is working on this.
In a first July meeting, Ms. Jones researched best practices and
outlined why each of the seven buckets of funding was important and what could
be expected benefits to the county. Discussions were then opened in the second August meeting on the nuts of bolts of how these programs would role out. You
can listen to this meeting yourself on the county site.
It was a robust discussion with many viewpoints and a
healthy way to involve all members of this subcommittee as they work toward a
presentation to the full County Arts and Culture Commission. The important
questions that were raised and have to be sorted out are as follows:
What will really help
to keep artists of quality in San Diego?
How do you actually create a supportive community of
artists?
How can each application be tailored for each project and
still remain as simple as possible?
How do you judge the success of the project?
How do you define who is underserved?
Who selects who get the funding? Is it peer review or
hybrid of peer/random selection.
How much money goes to how many artists? Or residencies? Or
Space projects? Is there a cost per hour
expected? How many hours could be expected? Should funding be varied or set.
What is the cycle of the program? One year, 18 months to
allow for cross over or more?
How much of the total $2.75 million above the $250k
designated for admin goes to admin cost? National Endowment for the Arts and other grant-makers allows
10%. Ms. Jones is suggesting an additional $500k of program funds for additional services for artists,
county departments and organizations. For example: What
exactly will technical assistance entail? How much will it cost to share final outcomes? What are the specific budget items for that $750K? this amount is 36% of the total allocation for administration.*
It is still early days for programs of this size and scope, for a newly appointed administrator and a commission that is only 3 years old. But so far, the progress that is being made is impressive and the consideration that all parties are showing to maximize the result is to be admired. But shouldn't artists in our county get as much funding out of these programs as possible?
*Sept 3, 2026 Update: The committee has now discussed the $1/2million for further administration cost for services and the money has been returned to the original buckets for artists, art spaces and artist residencies. Services will still be supplied but out of the $250,000 that was designated by the County Supervisors in their instructions. The county has urged for a simplified process.
