In January, the New Haven Independent reported on what the state Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts described in a press release as “changes that will better integrate the state’s arts programs and economic development efforts.”
“Beginning in July,” the Independent reported, “existing arts-related grant programs, which today are funded at $1.6 milion, will be merged. In 2013, a reallocation of existing DECD grant funds will make available to that single arts-related grant program $3.1 million.”
The new funding system, called the Arts Catalyze Placemaking (ACP) Program, “takes some of the best elements of previous grant programs and merges them into one overarching grant program with a focus on creative placemaking while wrapping the review and reporting process around a consistent evaluation system,” according to language on the Office of the Arts website, which makes available a document indicating that the program will fund “activities (and/or) projects of various scale … which support creative placemaking goals” and provide “sustaining support for arts-based organizations whose work is relevant and supports COA’s creative placemaking goals.”
The above-mentioned document indicates that “stabilization agreements (will) not (be) available in FY2013.”
Language on the Office of the Arts website points out that “a minimum of (eight) weeks will be given for application preparation from the time the full guidelines are posted to the date of the application deadline. The projected application deadline is currently scheduled for mid-September. The funding period will begin in the fall of 2012.”
The Office of the Arts expects to announce its “full guidelines” by Aug. 1. An information session about the new arts-funding program is expected to take place in New Haven.