ASI awards $25,000 to WNY arts & cultural groups selected for 'Give for Greatness' program

Arts Services Inc. (ASI) awarded 25 “Give for Greatness” grants in the amount of $1,000 each to 25 arts and cultural nonprofit organizations based in Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, and Allegany counties. The 25 organizations were selected from 57 total applications for their work and accomplishments in 2020 by a panel of local leaders from the industry.

Recipients include:

• 13 Players
• Alleyway Theatre
• Art for Rural America
• Black Rock Historical Society
• Brazen-Faced Varlets
• Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus
• Buffalo Girlchoir
• Buffalo International Film Festival
• Buffalo Jazz Collective
• Buffalo Opera Unlimited
• Carnegie Art Center
• Chautauqua Regional Youth Symphony
• ComedySportz Buffalo
• danceability
• El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera
• Nusantara Arts
• O’Connell & Company
• Pappy Martin Legacy Jazz Collective
• Rock Autism
• Southern Tier Symphony
• Stitch Buffalo
• The Fountain Arts Center
• The Olean Theatre Workshop
• The Springville Center for the Arts
• WNY Book Arts Collaboration

The “Give for Greatness” grants support small to mid-sized arts and cultural nonprofits for their work serving the community in the previous calendar year.

Despite restrictions on operations, these organizations managed to find unique and creative ways to continue serving the community through their programming in 2020.

“ ‘Give for Greatness’ awards vital community-based organizations for their important work by providing general operating support that can be used in whatever way they need,” ASI Executive Director Jen Swan-Kilpatrick said. “These critical cultural hubs serve niche communities across many of Western New York’s urban and rural regions, and often operate on an annual budget of less than $50,000 and with a nearly all-volunteer staff.”

Since 2014, ASI has distributed nearly $175,000 to over 100 regional arts and cultural organizations through this fund.

 "Arts Services Inc. has provided our organization with funding that will help to bridge the gap between our committed vision and viable execution,” said Dawn Martin Berry-Walker, chief executive of the Pappy Martin Legacy Jazz Collective. “We are so very appreciative for the opportunity to put this additional funding to productive and beneficial use, particularly at our Love Supreme School of Music, which offers free music lessons to underserved and deserving members of our community."

“Give for Greatness” is funded by money ASI raises throughout the year and is supported by Fund for the Arts, Lawyers for the Arts, The Marilyn Gohr McTaggart Reveal Fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo, and The Rupp Family Foundation.

Learn more by visiting asiwny.org/give-for-greatness-grants or by contacting Holly Grant at [email protected].