Deadline: 1-Jul-22
The Washington Festival and Events Association, in partnership with Washington State Department of Commerce and ArtsWA, is inviting applications for its Festival and Events Grant Program.
Funding is provided by the Washington State Department of Commerce and administered by Washington Festivals and Events Association in collaboration with the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA).
Goals
The grant program’s goals to help communities recover from pandemic losses are to:
- Increase business revenue and attendee overnight or extended accommodation stays.
- Generate local tax revenue and restore community-giving programs.
- Support small businesses that depend on seasonal festivals and events to fund their operations and provide community employment opportunities.
- Assist businesses in the tourism, entertainment, and other creative subsectors by ensuring that legacy festivals restart in a safe, sustainable, and self-sufficient manner while following CDC and state-level health and public safety guidelines.
- Preserve the vibrancy, diversity, and growth of local entertainment and arts communities as an integral part of the state’s creative economy.
- Stimulate new community sponsorships, in-kind donations, and monetary support to create long-term financial stability.
- Preserve community celebrations of local history, culture, arts, music and identity
Second Paragraph
This program supports “legacy-level” community events, including:
- festivals
- civic and holiday celebrations
- cultural and heritage events
- music festivals
- street and art fairs
Funding Information
Grants will range from $5,000 to $35,000, based on need and demonstrated losses
What does this grant fund?
- Funding supports events in communities of less than 100,000 residents (based on the 2020 Census). Grants are designed to either restart and stabilize “legacy-level” festival and events suspended in 2020 and 2021, recover from disruptions and losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, or both.
- Covered expenses include deposits on infrastructure (security, temporary fencing, staging, lights, sound equipment, etc.) and staff and labor costs.
Eligibility Criteria
To be eligible, organizations must meet the following criteria:
- “Legacy-level” festivals and events in Washington State communities of less than 100,000 residents (based on 2020 Census).
- *“Legacy-level” is defined as being held in the community for five or more years.
- **For the purposes of this grant, “Communities” are defined as a geographic area with less than 100,000 residents according to the 2020 census and not part of, or located within, the 10 cities above this threshold (Seattle, Bellevue, Kent, Renton, Federal Way, Everett, Tacoma, Vancouver, Spokane and Spokane Valley).
- Active for-profit or non-profit organizations identified by UBI, EIN, and UEI numbers
- Organizations with demonstrable financial loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021
Ineligible
- One-off concerts that are not part of an ongoing series (such as an annual concert in the park series)
- Events that are online/virtual only
- Festivals or Events not in existence in the last five years
- Events that are exclusive (not open to everyone, or only available to affiliates)
- One-off events or series of events that aren’t “festival” in nature
- Events or festivals that are political or advocacy in nature
- Most sporting events that are primarily spectator-oriented (unless they are part of a Lifestyle festival, such as a rodeo)
- Events or festivals that are under three hours in duration
- Organizations debarred, suspended, ineligible, or voluntarily excluded from receiving federal funds
- Organizations permanently closed or intend to permanently close in 2022.
For more information, visit https://www.arts.wa.gov/wfea/