Douglas County brought in more than $100,000 in state grants for arts programs, but received about $50,000 less than last year due to decreased funding from the Kansas Legislature.
Thirteen Douglas County organizations and nonprofits received awards. The largest award was for the KU Endowment Association, which received $11,400. The smallest award was for the Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance, which received $3,713.
The Lawrence Arts Center and Theatre Lawrence each received grants, but both saw their award amount drop by thousands of dollars. The Lawrence Arts Center has been recovering from a budget deficit that forced a round of staff layoffs earlier this year.
Arts organizations expressed concerns in May after President Donald Trump’s proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA sends funds to the Kansas Arts Commission, which then allocates funding to individual organizations.
But Patrick Lowry, director of marketing and communications for the Kansas Department of Commerce, said funding from NEA did not decrease this year. Instead, it was a cut in funding from the Kansas Legislature — from $1.5 million to $1 million — that caused the decrease in total grant money.
Also, the appropriations included a provision that only 40% of grant money be awarded to counties with a population above 85,000. Lowry said this likely affected grant disbursements to Douglas, Johnson, Wyandotte, Shawnee and Sedgwick counties.
Here is a complete list of KAC grants for Douglas County programs:
| Organization | Amount | Grant type |
|---|---|---|
| KU Endowment Association | $11,400 | Arts Everywhere |
| Lawrence Arts Center | $10,000 | Arts Everywhere |
| Lawrence Kansas Juneteenth Organization | $10,000 | Arts Everywhere |
| Busker Festival | $10,000 | Arts Everywhere |
| Great Plains Emerging Arts Project Inc. | $10,000 | Arts Everywhere |
| Heartland Chamber Music | $7,500 | Visiting Artists |
| Theatre Lawrence | $7,236 | General Operating Support |
| Americana Music Academy | $6,809 | General Operating Support |
| Van Go Inc. | $6,711 | General Operating Support |
| Lumberyard Arts Center Inc. | $6,705 | General Operating Support |
| Lawrence Art Guild Association | $6,295 | General Operating Support |
| Lawrence Community Orchestra | $5,539 | General Operating Support |
| Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance | $3,713 | General Operating Support |
| Total | $101,908 |
If local news matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.
Latest Lawrence news:
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
