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April 2010
A Historical Perspective:
In 1997, the Indiana Arts Commission, a state
agency, and 12 community-based organizations jointly
established the Indiana Regional Arts Partnership, a
collaboration to enhance support for arts and
cultural activities statewide, especially in
underserved areas.
Beginning in 1999, the Indiana Arts Commission
provided regional funding allocations to all
Regional Arts Partners for re-granting and services
to arts providers within their regions.
Until the recent changes made by the IAC, each of
the Partners was to work in cooperation with the
state arts agency to provide four core services of
cultural planning, grants making, information and
referral, and technical assistance to artists, arts
providers, and arts consumers in specified
multi-county regions of Indiana. |
Indiana Arts
Commission to Adopt Modified Restructuring Plan
After a 5-week review of
public input and recommendations from its Regional
Arts Partners, the
Indiana Arts Commission (IAC) approved a
modified version on April 15th of a
restructuring plan unveiled and initially approved
in March. The original plan centralized almost all
services currently provided by the Regional Arts
Partners. The modified plan approved in April
centralizes some services while retaining certain
aspects of the regional system. Lewis Ricci, IAC
executive director, said, “the Commission’s desire
to gather additional public input as well as review
possible options from our regional representatives
is reflected in the adoption…this plan will still
involve regional delivery of the vast majority of
our grants and services to community-based cultural
providers.”
The March plan called for
centrally administering the Arts Organization
Support II grants category. These grants
represented the largest individual grants awarded to
organizations by the Regional Arts Partners. At the
April 15th meeting, the IAC voted to
leave this grants category with the Regional Arts
Partners. According to Ricci, “the IAC will still
provide a centralized grant application process and
have final approval on these grants, but at the same
time preserves the regional review and grant award
process in which the regional organizations have
developed expertise.”
The Regional Arts Partners
will continue to administer Arts Organization
Support I (AOS I), along with Arts Project Support (APS)
grants and a new AOS 0 grants category, which will
be developed to provide operating grants for the
smallest of arts organizations. The pool of money
previously used for AOS I (smaller arts
organizations) and Arts Project Support (APS - non‐arts
centric organizations) will now be split amongst AOS
I, APS, and AOS 0. While nonarts organizations, such
as libraries, schools and universities will be able
to apply for APS grants as before, considerably
fewer funds will now be available.
In the original
restructuring plan all technical assistance services
would have been centralized. In the modified plan
the IAC will still deliver some centralized
technical assistance, but the Regional Arts Partners
will also be eligible to deliver specific, strategic
local services based on cultural needs assessment
and planning conducted by the IAC.
The initial restructuring plan was developed over
several months with very limited input from the
field to address the IAC’s reduction in state budget
appropriations. The stated goal of the IAC was to
restructure grant programs in order to restore some
grant categories to pre-budget reduction levels.
The amended restructuring plan will go into effect
for the next fiscal year which begins July 1.
The IAC had originally
proposed to change the name of the Regional Arts
Partners to Regional Grants Administrators or
Regional Grants Agents. At the April 15th meeting
the IAC voted unanimously to retain the name
Regional Arts Partnership and any organization
serving the IAC as a regional granting and service
provider will continue to be known as a Regional
Arts Partner.
The IAC will continue to
provide Community Arts Program (CAP) awards to the
Regional Partners, but this will be at a reduced
level that is projected to be comparable to AOS II
grants statewide. The IAC will also reduce the
amount of administrative funds each Regional Partner
receives for re‐granting from 12% of the Regional
Block Grant total to 7.5%.
Two service components that will be removed from the
Regional Arts Partnership’s responsibilities will be
cultural planning and arts information and
referral. The IAC will now be responsible for
development of cultural needs assessment and
planning for the entire state. Regional Partners
will receive a smaller amount of administrative
funds to develop specific regional plans through the
Strategic Initiative. The IAC will no longer provide
funding to the Regional Arts Partners for arts
information services. |
