The newly renamed ArtsBuild (formerly known as Allied Arts) announced the recipients of its newest grants initiative program, Community Cultural Connections, at its unveiling press conference last week.
Twenty-three Hamilton county-based organizations received small grants, up to $6,000, to fund arts experiences in social service agencies, neighborhoods, and municipalities throughout the community.
Funding for this new grant program was provided by ArtsBuild and through Hamilton County Commissioner Tim Boyd’s discretionary funds. The grant program is a direct result of one of the primary goals of Imagine Chattanooga 20/20, the city’s long-range cultural plan. The primary goal of the grants is to make arts and culture more accessible to underserved populations including geographic, ethnic, age and individuals with disabilities. Recipient organizations were not required to have 501c3 nonprofit status, making the CCC grants available to a much larger pool of institutions.
“Our goal for this new grant program was to attract 20 to 25 grant applications. We were very pleased by the response from community groups, and we received 61 applications,” Rodney Van Valkenburg, ArtsBuild’s director of grants and initiatives, said. “The grant panel was very careful to fund a diverse array of grant projects that benefitted a variety of groups—young people, senior citizens and people with disabilities, representing different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds as well as different areas of our community.”