ASI awards a total of $235,640 in emergency grants to 154 individual artists & organizations

Arts Services Initiative of Western New York Inc. recently announced it awarded a total of 154 emergency grants – amounting to $235,640 total – through its WNY Arts Emergency Relief Fund. The fund, which opened on May 1, in response to COVID-19’s devastating impact on Western New York’s arts and cultural sector, supported 86 of the region’s arts and cultural organizations and 68 of its individual artists, with the average grant amount of $2,262 per organization and $642 per individual.

Grantees represent all arts and cultural forms and are located in all five counties of Western New York. In addition to the 68 individual artists, teaching artists and creative workers who received funding, grants were awarded to the following nonprofit arts and cultural organizations:

• 1891 Fredonia Opera House
• Alleyway Theatre Inc.
• American Repertory Theater of WNY
• Aquarium of Niagara
• Artpark & Company
• Ballet Artists of WNY (d/b/a Neglia Ballet)
• Buffalo and Brandy
• Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens Society
• Buffalo Arts Studio
• Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology
• Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus
• Buffalo Girlchoir
• Buffalo Inner City Ballet
• Buffalo Jazz Collective
• Buffalo Maritime Center
• Buffalo Niagara Choirs
• Buffalo Niagara Concert Band
• Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village
• Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus
• Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
• Carnegie Art Center
• Carousel Society of the Niagara Frontier
• Cattaraugus County Living Arts Association
• CEPA Gallery
• Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet
• Chopin Singing Society
• Colored Musicians Club of Buffalo NY
• Danceability Inc.
• El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera
• Explore & More Children’s Museum
• Explore Buffalo
• Fenton History Center
• German-American Musicians Association
• Graycliff Conservancy
• Hamburg Natural History Society/Penn Dixie
• Harmonia Chamber Singers
• Hispanic Heritage Council of WNY
• Historic Palace
• Historical Society of Dunkirk
• Hull House Foundation
• Infinity Visual and Performing Arts
• Irish Classical Theatre Co.
• Jewish Repertory Theatre
• Just Buffalo Literary Center
• Kenan Center
• Kleinhans Music Hall management
• Lewiston Council on the Arts
• Lock City Glee Club
• Locust Street Neighborhood art classes
• Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown
• Martin House Restoration Corp.
• MusicalFare Theatre
• National Comedy Center
• New Phoenix Theatre on the Park
• Niagara Arts and Cultural Center
• Niagara County Historical Society
• Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center
• Nusantara Arts Inc.
• Pappy Martin Legacy Jazz Collective
• Preservation Buffalo Niagara
• Reg Lenna Center for the Arts
• Road Less Traveled Productions
• Rock Autism
• Roycroft Campus Corp.
• Roycrofters-at-Large Association
• Second Generation Theatre Co.
• Shakespeare in Delaware Park
• Springville Center for the Arts
• Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center
• Starring Buffalo
• Stitch Buffalo
• Sugar City
• The Big Easy in Buffalo
• The Fountain Arts Center
• The Kavinoky Theatre
• The Niagara Regional Theatre Guild
• The Olean Theatre Workshop
• The Subversive Theatre Collective
• The Western New York Artists Group
• Theatre in the Mist
• Theatre of Youth Co.
• Torn Space Theater
• Tri-County Arts Council
• Ujima Company
• West Falls Center for the Arts
• Western New York Book Arts Collaborative

In addition to the fund, ASI provided learning opportunities through its “Reopening Together” weekly professional development series throughout the month of June, where attendees gained valuable insight into state guidelines and the specific challenges each art form currently faces. ASI has also surveyed both Western New York’s creative field (emergency relief survey) and its patrons (audience and patron intent survey) to inform the future COVID-19-related initiatives the organization will coordinate.

“ASI is currently exploring further opportunities to assist the sector, and we hope to share news on that soon,” ASI Executive Director Jen Swan-Kilpatrick said. “As we head into reopening, which will look different for every organization, our goal remains to ensure that our creative industry makes it to the other side of this crisis.”

ASI created and administered the WNY Arts Emergency Relief Fund with support from Fund for the Arts, a funder’s cooperative of public, private, family and corporate foundations that assesses the needs of the arts community, promotes collaboration, and strengthens the sector through systems change approaches. This fund was also supported by the Marilyn Gohr McTaggart Reveal Fund at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, a family fund at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, and the individual donors of ASI’s GoFundMe campaign.

Learn more by visiting asiwny.org/wny-arts-emergency-relief-fund or by contacting Holly Grant at [email protected].

Arts Services Initiative (ASI) empowers the region's artists and arts organizations with connections to funding, learning opportunities, and community access to the arts. ASI is a resource hub for the Western New York arts and cultural sector.