Arts Funding

The Regional Arts Commission gets most of its funding from the hotel-motel tax. With tourism down since the outset of the pandemic, a new marketing campaign aims to raise the profile of St. Louis as an arts destination.

As the last of the 2022 performances and exhibitions wrap up, a handful of trends and takeaways have crystallized over the past year and lay a path forward for where the St. Louis arts scene is headed.

The Regional Arts Commission will distribute $10.6 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to St. Louis artists and organizations.

A national nonprofit is returning to St. Louis to study how the arts contribute to the region’s economy. Arts leaders say it's important to gauge the strength of arts organizations after the coronavirus pandemic decimated their revenues.

The grants are the first for individual artists and specific programs since 2020. The Regional Arts Commission has continued to provide general funding to larger organizations during the pandemic, though at dramatically reduced levels.

St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s office is recommending that $1.6 million of the county’s federal coronavirus relief funds go toward regional arts education programs. The recommendation comes as arts leaders have called on the county to allocate 5% of its federal relief funds to arts institutions and programs.

Arts and Education Council President and CEO Cynthia Prost will step down in July after 14 years of leading the organization. Prost plans to work as a strategic consultant to nonprofits.

The Kranzberg residency program grows beyond musicians to include artists, writers and filmmaker. They will receive training, work space and performance opportunities.

More than 100 St. Louis area arts institutions are calling on St. Louis and St. Louis County officials to use federal coronavirus relief funding to help support the arts.

The grant money supports organizations taking innovative approaches to heal trauma among individuals and communities.