×

Wieting Theatre receives Arts Midwest grant

Historic Wieting Theatre

Sixty-one Midwestern arts and culture organizations received new COVID-19 relief grants on Nov. 30 from Arts Midwest through Phase 2 of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund.

Toledo’s Wieting Theatre was one of nine Iowa arts organizations to receive Resilience Fund support in the amount of a $20,000 grant.

The relief funding comes at a time when the Wieting Theatre has been temporarily closed since March 2020 while the COVID-19 pandemic has remained active.

With little opportunity to create revenue during the pandemic health crisis, non-profit arts organizations like the Wieting Theatre have faced challenges in keeping up with overhead costs as well as being able to invest and plan for a safe future return for their patrons.

The Resilience Fund’s goal is to invest in historically under-resourced arts and culture organizations across the United States as they work to weather the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with these priorities, thirty-two of the funded organizations are based in rural areas, twenty-five are led by and serving people of color, and five are led by and serving Native and Indigenous communities.

The sixty-one selected organizations will each receive between $10,000 – $50,000 as a one-time investment. Recipients may direct United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund grants to their most pressing needs and opportunities, from response activities to investments that build resiliency and sustainability.

Other area arts organizations that received Resilience Fund assistance included Marshall County Arts & Culture Alliance, $20,000; George Daily Community Auditorium in Oskaloosa, Iowa, $35,000 and the Youth Art Team in Waterloo, Iowa $30,000.

The United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund began in June 2020, when each of America’s six Regional Arts Organizations, a national collective of place-based nonprofit arts service organizations, received allocations of a $10 million emergency grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Arts Midwest invested its initial $1.5 million share from the Mellon Foundation into thirty mid-to-large size organizations across the region. This investment was then matched by an anonymous donor, with Phase 2 supporting additional smaller organizations with annual budgets between $50,000 – $249,999.

To ensure that rural communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color were integral voices in the funding process, Arts Midwest shaped an equity-focused trust-based philanthropic model. Decision making on how to allocate all Resilience Fund grants has been guided by rural culture makers and arts leaders of color from across the Midwest as well as representatives from Arts Midwest’s nine partner State Arts Agencies.

In total, over eight hundred Midwestern organizations have been nominated by community members to receive money through the Resilience Fund. All nominated organizations will have access to free capacity building resources and webinars put on by Arts Midwest in the coming months.

“As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the nation, smaller arts and culture organizations are deeply hurting.” says Torrie Allen, President and CEO of Arts Midwest. “We are grateful to the Mellon Foundation and our anonymous funder for investing in the creative core of the Midwest. We are hopeful that these funds will help organizations across our region weather the storm so that they can keep serving their communities for years to come.”