QUESTION
What is being done to ensure equitable distribution of cultural funding across the boroughs?
3:00:51
·
3 min
The Department of Cultural Affairs ensures borough parity in funding distribution through their application review process, which yields award percentages that match the percentage of applicants from each borough within 1%.
- More applicants from a borough leads to more funding awarded to that borough proportionally
- A new budget band of $40,000 minimum was created for organizations with budgets between $1.5-3 million to provide more support
- Higher funding allows organizations to be funded at higher levels within their respective budget bands
- The goal is to relate funding amounts more directly to an organization's programming scope and community served
Carlina Rivera
3:00:51
So how do you ensure that there's barrel parity in the distribution of funding?
3:00:55
And can you give us a barrel wide breakdown of CDF recipients by funding amount.
3:01:04
Can you talk to how the funding has been used to expand equity within the cultural community with specific examples.
Lance Polivy
3:01:13
In terms of borough equity, we're really proud that our application process that is so focused on the quality of each grant application has yielded results that align to the percentage based on the total number of applications from each bureau and the total number of awards for each bureau.
3:01:37
So those percentages are within 1% exactly the same for all five boroughs.
3:01:45
So To the extent that there is any bureau who wants more funding to that bureau, the best way to do it is to make sure that we have more applicants from that bureau.
3:01:57
But as soon as we get those applications, we are seeing that the awards match.
3:02:03
Exactly to the percent, to the number of applicants coming in.
Laurie Cumbo
3:02:08
And I just wanted to add something that you had asked about in terms of the amount of funding awarded.
3:02:14
So we changed one of the changes that we made from the hearings was that a new ban for applicants with budget sizes of 1,500,000 up to $3,000,000.
3:02:27
So the way that the application process works is If you're an organization with a budget size of 1,500,000 to $3,000,000 previously, This ban included groups from 500,000 up to 3,000,000 with a minimum award size of $30,000.
3:02:45
Right?
3:02:46
So we changed that so that in practice, what we wanted to make sure was that we now have a new budget band that will be $40,000 in effort to give more city support to midsize institutions.
3:02:59
So we may have a budget band that starts at $30,000 and could go to, like, let's say, $60,000.
3:03:07
But now we've changed that budget band so that it's $40,000.
3:03:11
When we have additional funding, because the budget bands could go from, like, 40,000 to, let's say, 60, 1000.
3:03:18
But when we have less funding, most of the organizations would get a $40,000 grant in that budget ban versus a $60,000 grant.
3:03:29
So more funding allows us the ability to be able to allocate more resources for that band when more resources are available.
3:03:37
But what we don't want to have happen is that for certain organizations, that are between 1,530,000.
3:03:46
We didn't want their budget band to be 30,000.
3:03:49
At the start, we wanted it to be 40,000 just to provide a bit more help and support and funding to those organizations that is more directly related to the amount of programming that they're doing and the community that they're serving.
3:04:03
So more funding allows us to be able to fund organizations at a higher level within their budget band when more resources are available.
Carlina Rivera
3:04:14
Okay.
3:04:14
I think you're gonna from a lot of organizations today, their thoughts on on how these cuts and awards transpired.
3:04:23
Mhmm.
3:04:23
I will also just mentioned that many of them do do feel blindsided.
