PORTLAND, ORE. — The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has awarded $661,543 in project grants for calendar year 2014, including 60 grants to nonprofit organizations and schools, and 88 individual artists in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties. This sum is 10.7% less than RACC awarded for project grants last year, attributable primarily to across-the-board cuts from the City of Portland, RACC’s largest funding source. Clackamas County, Washington County, Multnomah County, Metro, and Work for Art also help fund these project grants.

 

With applications at an all-time high, this year’s grants were especially competitive – only 42% of all requests were fully or partially funded. Even so, many individual artists were successful in securing RACC funds for the first time – 60% of all funded artists and 20% of all funded organizations this cycle are receiving their first RACC project grant.

 

Fifty-eight volunteers served on 14 different panels organized by discipline. Most (93%) served as a RACC panelist for the first time, and 38% identified as non-Caucasian and/or multicultural. Guided by staff during the months of October, November and December, these volunteers evaluated 134 proposals based on artistic merit, audience development and financial accountability, and forwarded their final recommendations to the RACC board of directors, which approved the grants on December 18.

 

A summary of funded grants can be found at www.racc.org/2014projectgrants. Among them:

“RACC has been working hard to reach out and collaborate with new artists and new artistic communities in the region, and I believe that this fantastic slate of upcoming projects reflects that commitment,” Eloise Damrosch, executive director of RACC. “We are looking forward to another year of creation and innovation, and we will continue evolving our process and procedures to ensure that we are supporting a diverse array of artists and organizations in our community.”

A complete listing of grants appears below, and summaries of each grant are available atwww.racc.org/2014projectgrants.