Tennessee Arts Commission Executive Director, Anne B. Pope and ArtsBuild President Dan Bowers.
ArtsBuild received $99,400 in grant funding from the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC), who awarded a total of three grants to ArtsBuild including: Major Cultural Institutions (MCI) grant of $76,500, Arts Build Communities (ABC) grant of $15,900, and Arts Education: Teacher Training grant of $7,000.
“The Tennessee Arts Commission’s continued funding is vital to ArtsBuild’s sustainability and to the fulfillment of our mission to build a stronger community through the arts,” said Dan Bowers, President of ArtsBuild.
“The TAC is the backbone of the arts in this state and their ongoing support of ArtsBuild is validation that Chattanooga is a leader in utilizing the arts to strengthen our community.”
The objective of the $15,900 ABC grant award is to build communities by nurturing artists, arts organizations, and arts supporters. The award, funded by the Tennessee General Assembly and administered in cooperation with the TAC and ArtsBuild, provides funds for a variety of quality arts projects.
ArtsBuild received $7,000 for an Arts Education Teacher Training grant, which is awarded to arts organizations who provide outstanding professional development opportunities for educators in arts integration instruction techniques and curriculum planning. The grant funds will cover the expenses of two workshop leaders from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts who will guide teachers through intensive workshops and hands-on coaching that strengthen literacy instruction through the arts.
ArtsBuild and the Hamilton County Department of Education are participants in the Partners in Education Program with the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Partners in Education Program supports the development of arts professional development workshops for classroom teachers. 2015 marks ArtsBuild’s twelfth year of partnering with the Tennessee Arts Commission, HCDE, and the Kennedy Center to provide these workshops to local educators.
“The Tennessee Arts Commission is honored to award these annual grants to support Tennessee’s communities and schools through the arts. These investments help cultivate the arts for the benefit of all Tennesseans and offer all of us a better quality of life, provide our children with a more complete education, stimulate economic development and attract tourists to our state,” said Tennessee Arts Commission Executive Director, Anne B. Pope.
Annual Grant review panels were held throughout the month of April to review the grant applications. Panels are divided into different categories including Arts Education, Arts Access, Community Arts, Folk Arts, Literary Arts, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theater, Inter-Arts, Funds for At-Risk Youth and Rural Arts. Panel members are appointed to two-year terms and generally consist of professional artists, arts administrators, patrons, sponsors, educators and community leaders.
The Tennessee Arts Commission board members voted unanimously to approve the annual grants on June 10 at the Commission quarterly board meeting. The meeting was the last quarterly meeting of FY15 in which the 15-member board historically votes on allocations and budget for the next fiscal year.
The Annual Grants are the first of a series of grants that will be made by the Tennessee Arts Commission. The Commission expects to award over 1,000 grants during FY2016, totaling more than $5.3 million dollars. These funds have a direct impact on communities across Tennessee, in both urban and rural areas.
Of the $5.3 million dollars that will be granted, $4.5 million came from specialty license plate fees earmarked to benefit the arts. Additionally, the Commission receives a state appropriation and federal funding, namely from the National Endowment for the Arts.