10A - Laserfiche WebLink

Community Arts/Cultural Activities Grants In 1992, the City Council established the City Grants Program. This program offers limited funding to community-based non-profit organizations that provide needed human services assistance and arts/cultural activities to Pleasanton residents. In FY 1995/96, the City recognized the need to address youth services, and a youth category was added. The arts/culture and youth components of the former City Grant program were combined to form the current "Community Grant" (CG) program. For many grant cycles, the City Council has annually allocated $40,000 in General Fund dollars each to the arts/cultural activity projects and to youth projects. In FY 2020/21, for the CG program, $54,903 is available for arts/culture projects and $40,000 is available for youth projects for a total allocation amount of$94,903. This includes the new annual allocation of$80,000 ($40,000 for each program) plus $14,903 in unspent funds from the prior year that can be carried over and reallocated to new projects. Community Grant awards are typically limited to a maximum of $7,500 for each individual grant. Information on the CG program was provided at two regional pre-application informational workshops held on December 11 and 17, 2019, in Pleasanton and Livermore which also presented information about Pleasanton's HHSG program and similar grant programs offered by the cities of Livermore and Dublin. In response, 14 applications were received in the arts/culture category (although only 13 applications were allocated funding) with a total aggregate request of $83,736 and seven applications were received in the youth category with a total aggregate request of $48,500. Arts/culture applications were reviewed by the Civic Arts Commission at its meeting on March 2, and its minutes are included as Attachment 4. Youth applications were reviewed by the Youth Commission at its meeting on March 11, and its minutes are included as Attachment 5. At each meeting, specific agency representatives made a presentation and addressed commission questions. All agencies attended their designated commission meeting, except one agency did not attend the Civic Arts Commission meeting on March 2. After reviewing all applications and presentations, the commissions discussed the merits of each project and determined funding levels for the 20 applications. Due to the unexpected health emergency and the current shelter in place order, it is unknown when organizations will be able to begin their projects. While funding will be available beginning July 1, 2020, many organizations may not be able to begin their projects until later this year or possibly the beginning of 2021. For this reason, staff is recommending that the deadline to expend grant funding be extended for one year with all projects and funding reimbursement requests to be completed by June 30, 2022. Page 10 of 12