SLFRF-Funded Program Overview

The City Artist Corps (CAC) program was created to provide relief to New York City's hard-hit arts community and reinvigorate arts and culture as part of the City's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to giving New Yorkers opportunities to experience a diverse range of free cultural programming across the boroughs, City Artist Corps ensured that more than 3,000 working artists were supported in their own right, recognizing their labor as critical to the City's recovery. 

One of the primary ways that CAC supported artists was through City Artist Corps Grants (CACG), which supported NYC-based working artists who were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 with relief grants. DCLA partners, Queens Theatre and New York Foundation for the Arts, worked with more than a dozen re-grant and art services organizations to distribute $5,000 grants to 3,000 artists. As part of the program, CACG members presented workshops, exhibitions, performances, installations, murals, and much more – free and open to all New Yorkers. Eligible applicants were selected using a lottery approach, a new method of distribution for DCLA. The lottery approach was used to accelerate the process of providing funds to artists from a pool of over 8,000 applications. See the Program Website

The agency also transferred funds to the city’s public housing authority, Department of Education, Department of Probation, and the NYC Civic Engagement Commission to partner artists with public housing residents and public schools, and to create artworks for public spaces under the CAC program.

Advocacy

In partnership with the NYC Office of Management and Budget, DCLA coordinated and proposed uses of SLFRF dollars that would benefit the arts and culture sector in New York City. Community advocacy efforts were coordinated into rallies in Times Square and other locations around the city to show support for relief funding for the sector through DCLA as well as other sector support through a program like the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program (also known as Save Our Stages).

Process

After receiving the funds from the City, DCLA worked with Queens Theatre and New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and other city agency partners, to distribute the funds more efficiently and effectively to artists across the city. The added capacity enabled DCLA to continue other critical work alongside the disbursement of funds for the City Artist Corps.

Equity

Much of the focus of the City Artists Corps was on artists that were perhaps left out of other COVID-related funding programs due to banking and business requirements, or were members of communities disproportionately hard hit by the pandemic. Aligning with NYC’s Taskforce on Racial Inclusion & Equity’s (TRIE) identification of neighborhoods hit especially hard by the pandemic, DCLA supported artists in the 33 neighborhoods to apply for City Artists Corps funding. Additional weighting criteria for applicants focused on those with a disability status or were low income. Over 56% of grantees were from the 33 TRIE-identified neighborhoods, and over 70% of grantees were from weighted criteria categories. See Equity information

Moving Forward

With the end of federal pandemic relief funding, there are no immediate plans to continue the City Artist Corps program, but its impacts continue to be felt as NYC seeks ways to support the ongoing recovery of its cultural community.  

Apart from the City Artist Corps, DCLA has utilized time throughout the pandemic to revamp aspects of the Cultural Development Fund (CDF), its annual competitive grant program, to better and more equitably support the sector. The CDF supports a broad, multidisciplinary group of diverse non-profit organizations for their cultural services to city residents. For two years during the pandemic, DCLA removed the competitive nature of the CDF- in efforts to support the sector throughout the crisis, and once the annual application process returned, it did so with a number of reforms aimed at reducing barriers to access. Private partners, such as Creatives Rebuilt New York, also experimented with new ways of directly supporting New York’s artists throughout the pandemic. Going forward, DCLA and its partners are continuing to find ways to incorporate the lessons of CAC into existing programs, and explore new partnerships that respond to ongoing needs and opportunities.

The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) is dedicated to supporting and strengthening New York City's vibrant cultural life. Its primary mission is to ensure adequate public funding for non-profit cultural organizations, both large and small, throughout the five boroughs. DCLA also works to promote and advocate for quality arts programming and to articulate the contribution made by the cultural community to the City's economic vitality. The Department represents and serves non-profit cultural organizations involved in the visual, literary and performing arts; public-oriented science and humanities institutions including zoos, botanical gardens and historic and preservation societies; and creative artists at all skill levels who live and work within the City's five boroughs. Visit the DCLA Website