Statewide Community Regrants: News & Overview

With the application window for Round 2 of the 2024 Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) categories of Arts Education, Community Arts, and Individual Artist now OPEN, reviewing the information on the four pages of this grants section, along with the 2024 SCR application guidelines, which is required reading for applying this year (and which you can download from the SCR-cycle page), will give you a solid grounding in what you need to know to apply for Round-2 SCR funding, the fiscal-year 2025 grant cycle and beyond.

To learn more about the kind of projects that are eligible, what's required in applying for SCR funding, or aspects of the grant program that you may have questions about, you also can contact the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) NYS Coordinator, Fred Balzac, at fred@adirondackarts.org, as well as via his cell number, 518-588-7275 (including by text). 

Click here to visit the SCR grant-cycle page for info on Round-2 2024 grant opportunities currently available.

 

The Application Window for Round-2

2024 SCR Funding Is Now OPEN!

 

Please note the following considerations:

● Round-2 applicants who did not apply earlier this year in Round 1 can request a minimum of $1,000 up to a maximum of $2,500 for one or two separate projects in the Arts Education and/or Community Arts category only. The Individual Artist category, which is limited to 25% of the total amount of regrant funding available in a given grant cycle, maxed out in Round 1 this year but will be offered for 2025.

● Organizations and teaching artists who applied in Round 1 can apply in Round 2 but only for one or two entirely different projects. Round-1 grantees who received more than $4,000 but less than $5,000 can request the difference. For example, applicants who were awarded $4,250 in Round 1 can request $750 in Round 2.

● Applications that meet all of the criteria and requirements as detailed in the 2024 SCR application guidelines will be awarded 100% of their request on a first-come, first-served basis until all Round-2 funds ($29,200) are expended.

● Round-2 projects that are approved for funding must be completed no later than June 30th, 2025. Projects that have already been completed in 2024 can be funded retroactively—again, as long as they were not proposed in Round 1.

● Final Round-2 funding decisions will be subject to approval by ALCA's Board of Trustees and cannot be appealed.

Please see the next two pages of this website for such info/material as a PDF of the guidelines, scheduling a grant-application consultation with the grant coordinator, the link to the application forms in Submittable (shown in red in the "How to Apply" section on the next page), MS Word templates of the applications forms, and various grant resources.

 

ADK Quad-County SCR Program Regranting a Record-High $285,000 to the Region’s Arts Organizations and Creative & Teaching Artists

Funding Supports Arts Education, Community Arts, and Individual Artist Projects in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton Counties

 

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) is pleased to be awarding an all-time record-high amount for the region it serves of more than $250,000 in regrants to locally based arts and cultural organizations, teaching artists, and individual creative artists, with a second round of funding—the application window for which is now open—ultimately bringing the total of 2024 regrants to $285,000.

With funds made available by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), ALCA’s Adirondack (ADK) Quad-County Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Program continues to support a wide range of Arts Education, Community Arts and Individual Artist projects, to be completed in most cases by December 31, 2024. These 2024 SCR awards are funding a record-high number of more than 85 projects—including, to date, at least nine in Arts Ed totaling a minimum of $28,500; at least 48 in Community Arts totaling a minimum of $158,000; and 30 in the Individual Artist category, totaling more than $70,000. These projects are being presented throughout the four counties and the one tribal territory that ALCA, as the region’s NYSCA-designated SCR site, serves: Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties and the Akwesasne community of the Saint Regis Mohawk territory.

An additional $29,000+ is slated to be awarded in Round-2 2024 SCR funding—for Arts Education and Community Arts projects only.

 

A Wide Array of Programs and Performances

The 2024 SCR funding recipients and projects in the Arts Education, Community Arts and Individual Artist categories are listed as follows, along with the county or territory of each project’s location:

 

Individual Artist

 

Arts Education

 

Community Arts

 

Indispensable Roles Played by Panelists and Fiscal Sponsors

The SCR program was developed to ensure that New York State’s arts and cultural funding reaches every part of the state. The program forms the cornerstone of the partnership between NYSCA and local arts agencies throughout the state, providing a link between NYSCA and segments of communities that might not otherwise be able to access direct funding from NYSCA.

The ALCA grant program thanks all applicants who submitted funding proposals for the 2024 SCR awards. Special thanks for the indispensable roles played by:

1) The municipalities and nonprofit organizations—the Eddy Foundation, Play ADK, the Schroon Lake Arts Council, the Town of Elizabethtown, the Town of Keene and the Town of North Elba—that served as fiscal sponsors for arts groups that are not officially designated nonprofits or for individual artists; and

2) The individual artists and arts enthusiasts who served as peer-review panelists—many of whom have served in this role one or more previous times—and reviewed and evaluated several of this year’s nearly record-high number of 89 applications and 104 projects.

To learn more about ALCA’s grant program, please contact SCR Coordinator Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org and/or 518-588-7275. For more information on ALCA’s programs and activities, please visit other sections of this website, adirondackarts.org, or contact the Arts Center at 518-352-7715. ♦

The Statewide Community Regrants program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

__________

Haudenosaunee territory and New York county abbreviations: A = Akwesasne; C = Clinton; E = Essex; F = Franklin; H = Hamilton.

Application Window for ALCA’S 2024 SCR Program Opens for Teaching Artists, Arts & Cultural Organizations, and Arts Creators

A greater-than-35% increase in regrant funds from the New York State Council on the Arts to ALCA means expanded support for arts projects in the ADK Quad-County region of Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties, including new work by individual artists and programs focused on Native American and other indigenous people’s arts, culture and history

 

Grant applications are being sought for the 2024 Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Program from arts organizations, other nonprofits, artist collectives, individual artists requesting support for the creation of new work and teaching artists. The online application window, which just opened in mid-December, will be accessible through a “hard” initial deadline of Wednesday, February 28, 2024 (extended from February 14), with the possibility for applications submitted after that date also being funded.

As the SCR site for the Adirondack (ADK) Quad-County region of Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties, the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) is pleased to receive proposals for grant awards of up to $5,000 in two categories—Community Arts and Arts Education—and for arts-creation commissions of $2,500 in the revived category of Individual Artist grants, which, prior to 2023, had not been offered in the region in approximately a decade.

In addition to retaining the Individual Artist category, the ADK Quad-County Region SCR Program continues to feature, among its evaluation criteria, a “local priority for funding” for projects involving a focus on Native American or other indigenous people’s arts, culture and history, which was introduced as part of the 2023 application process.

Because the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) generously awarded ALCA a “Support for Partnerships” grant for 2024 that includes a total of $285,000 for regrants—representing more than a 35% increase over the SCR site’s 2022 total, $210,000—the regional grant program will be able to support significantly more arts organizations and artists than it has in previous years, while reaching into more remote areas and the farthest corners of the vast, extremely rural four-county regions, says SCR Coordinator Fred Balzac.

“For the 2023 cycle, we were able to offer funding to 52 of 53 applicants in the Community Arts category, totaling 59 proposed projects; 21 of 33 applicants in the Individual Artist category; and all five applicants in Arts Education—with each of this last group receiving 100% of their request,” he said. “The highest scoring projects in Community Arts whose applicant requested the maximum $5,000 received around 80% of the ask. For 2024, with the additional $75,000 in regrant funds from NYSCA, we may be able to not only fund Community Arts applicants at a higher percentage, but also approve and support many more proposed projects across the three categories.”

He remains especially excited about retaining both the Individual Artist grants and the local-priority-for-funding criterion involving Native American/indigenous people’s arts, culture and history. “Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the winter and spring of 2020, many individual artists as well as arts organizations were adversely affected financially, not to mention in terms of their health and well-being,” Balzac said.

“The retention of the Individual Artists grant category is an effort by those of us at ALCA—to the extent that each $2,500 commission can serve the artists who are awarded one—to help repair some of the harms brought on by the pandemic, while also encouraging the creation of new artistic work in our region.”

As for the continued local priority for funding, one of the hopes is, Balzac added “that it will highlight and spur further preservation of the arts, culture and history of such people as the Akwesasne here in our own region as an indispensable component of national and world culture.”

The application deadline for all three categories is Wednesday, February 28, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. (extended from February 14), and applications must be submitted online via the Submittable platform. One prerequisite to applying is to read the 2024 SCR application guidelines, which can be downloaded on the second page of the "Grants" section of this website, titled "Current or Upcoming SCR Cycle" (under the heading “Grant Guidelines”). The link to the application forms can be found on the grant-cycle page in red, under “How to Apply.”

Individual artists and arts organizations, other nonprofits and artist collectives that did not apply for either a 2021 Decentralization (DEC) grant (as the SCR awards were previously called) or 2022 or 2023 SCR funding should then email Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org to schedule an individual consultation by phone or attendance at a grant-application seminar via Zoom or in-person.

Organizations and individuals who did apply for either 2021 DEC or 2022 or 2023 SCR funding are not required to participate in a seminar or individual consultation but certainly have the option to do so and, if so inclined, should also contact the grant coordinator after reading the guidelines.

 

Connecting with New & Emerging Artists and Groups that Serve the Underserved

One main objective of the SCR Program statewide is to ensure that grant-supported programs reach underserved and underrepresented populations in New York. A top priority of the ADK Quad-County Region SCR Program is to connect with new or emerging artists and arts/cultural organizations, as well as longer-established ones, that themselves serve underrepresented or underserved people—with one stated goal being the encouragement and advancement of projects that represent diverse cultures and backgrounds in the four-county region.

Another hope for the continued funding criterion involving Native American and other indigenous peoples’ arts, culture and history is that it will encourage members of the Akwesasne community in the Saint Regis Mohawk Territory and other indigenous peoples in the region to apply individually, as well as to collaborate either within their own community or between their community and/or those of other Native American and indigenous people and/or non-Native American/non-indigenous people, Balzac noted.

“For the 2023 cycle, we received half a dozen applicants from residents of the Akwesasne area, five of whom received funding for at least one of the projects they applied for,” he said. “In addition, two members of our 2023 peer-review panels were Haudenosaunee—better known to some North Country residents as Mohawk. Our hope is to have even greater participation from members of the Haudenosaunee tribe as well as other communities in our four-county region that will further diversify our SCR Program—both on the application side and the peer-review side of the ledger.”

Similar circumstances undergirded the decision in late 2022 to revive the Individual Artist grants after a 10-year-or-so absence in this region. “Back then, it was thought that the few applications the then-named Decentralization, or DEC, Grant Program received in the Individual Artist category closely resembled certain Community Arts projects,” Balzac said. “However, the past couple of years we’ve received Community Arts applications that could’ve worked as well, if not better, in the Individual Artist category.

“Plus, given the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts as well as so many other parts of our society, we felt it was a good way to further support artists in our region—since the category funds the creation of works of art, not just their public presentations, which is the focus of the Community Arts category.”

 

Application Reviewers and Organizations to Serve as Fiscal Sponsors Also Wanted

Artists and arts enthusiasts who are not planning to apply, or to be involved in an application, for the 2024 SCR Program are encouraged to nominate themselves or people they know to serve as peer-review panelists. (Members of applying organizations may serve as long as they are not the grant writer or the prospective project manager for the proposed program and, of course, will be required to recuse themselves from any evaluation of their organization’s project.) Also being sought are organizations to serve as fiscal sponsors, including nonprofits of all kinds, not just arts organizations (e.g., service organizations such as a Kiwanis or Rotary club); governmental/quasi-governmental entities such as town or village governments; and tribal organizations.

To learn more about serving as a review panelist or fiscal sponsor, any aspect of the application process, or the SCR Program in general, please contact Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org and/or 518-588-7275 while also visiting adirondackarts.org/grantopportunities/scr.

The Statewide Community Regrants program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by NYSCA.

 

 

Support Your Local Artists...

...and Arts Organizations Who Are Supported by the Adirondack Quad-County Region's 2023 Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Awards

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) is pleased to be supporting the following the recipients of 2023 Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) awards for Arts Education, Community Arts, and Individual Artist projects to be completed in most cases by December 31, 2023. With funds made available by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), ALCA has regranted a total of record-high amount for this region of $210,000 for 78 projects—five in Arts Ed, totaling $22,475; 52 in Community Arts, totaling $135,025; and 21 in the Individual Artist category, totaling $52,500—throughout the four counties that the Arts Center, as the region’s NYSCA-designated SCR site, serves: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties.

The SCR funding recipients and projects, listed with their location, are:

Arts Education

 

Community Arts

 

Individual Artist

The SCR program was developed to ensure that New York State’s arts and cultural funding reaches every part of the state. The program forms the cornerstone of the partnership between NYSCA and local arts agencies throughout the state, providing a link between NYSCA and segments of communities that might not otherwise be able to access direct funding from NYSCA.

The ALCA grant program thanks all applicants who submitted funding proposals for the 2023 SCR awards, with special thanks both to:

1) Municipalities and nonprofit organizations such as the Adirondack North Country Association Inc., the Downtown Artist Cellar, the Eddy Foundation, John Brown Lives!, Keene Valley Library Association, Play ADK, the Saranac Lake Rotary Foundation, the Schroon Lake Arts Council, the Town of Elizabethtown, and the Town of North Elba that served as fiscal sponsors for arts groups that are not officially recognized nonprofits or for individual artists; and

2) The individual artists and arts enthusiasts who served as peer-review panelists—many for the second (or beyond second) time—and reviewed and evaluated several of this year’s all-time record high 91 applications and 112 projects.

To learn more about ALCA’s grant program, please contact SCR Coordinator Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org and/or 518-588-7275. For more information on ALCA’s programs and activities, please visit adirondackarts.org or contact the Arts Center at 518-352-7715. ♦

The Statewide Community Regrants program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

___________

County code: C = Clinton; E = Essex; F = Franklin; H = Hamilton.

 

ALCA Awarded $295,000 for Our 2023 ADK Quad-County Region SCR Arts Grant Program

The >125% increase means expanded funding for arts organizations & artists in Clinton, Essex, Franklin & Hamilton counties, including a new local priority for funding of projects focused on Native American & other indigenous people’s arts, culture & history

BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE, NY, December 2023—The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a grant of $295,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) for ALCA’s Adirondack (ADK) Quad-County Region Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Program for fiscal year 2023.

The award, which resulted from an application by ALCA staff members in NYSCA’s “Support for Partnerships” category, represents a greater-than-125% increase in the arts center’s current SCR funding of $130,000. In providing the grant, NYSCA approved 100% of ALCA’s request for the additional $165,000.

Along with significantly increasing the amount of money the SCR Program will be able to regrant to arts organizations and artists in Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties, the additional funding enables ALCA to expand its offerings and services to the entire four-county region. In addition to the ongoing grant categories of Community Arts and Arts Education, ALCA’s SCR Program is reviving the Individual Artist grants, which have not been offered in the ADK Quad-County region in approximately a decade.

Each grant category lists several criteria on which applications are evaluated—for example, artistic merit, organizational competence, service to the community, and local priorities for SCR funding in Community Arts. In this last one, priorities include projects that cross real or perceived boundaries in the region; projects that address areas of distinct cultural deficiency—e.g., programs for underserved rural communities; and projects that focus on, or represent, aspects of our region’s history or cultural identity/diversity. With the presence of the Akwesasne community based north of Franklin County in mind, ALCA’s grants program is pleased to add the priority of projects dedicated to Native American and other indigenous people’s arts, culture and history.

All in all, the increase in SCR support means an expansion of both the funding and services ALCA provides to arts organizations and artists in the four-county region, which translates into wider benefits for residents of, and visitors, to the many varied communities within the region, according to Jean-Marie Donohue, Development General Director of ALCA.

“We are grateful to NYSCA for this generous increase, which is a validation of the truly indispensable work ALCA has been doing for all four counties in our service area since at least the mid-2010s,” she said. “We are also excited about the opportunity the increase in funding offers to extend and deepen our service to the abundance of wonderful artists and arts organizations in the region. Although ours is a rural area, the communities we serve range from the City of Plattsburgh to the tiniest hamlets in remote stretches along the Canadian border and in the heart of the Adirondack mountains.

“On behalf of everyone among the ALCA staff and consultants who worked on several NYSCA applications this year, I want to thank the members of our Board of Trustees for their continued support of our SCR Program. We really could not do this without them!”

 

Spurring Cultural Preservation and Collaboration

One main objective of the SCR Program statewide is to ensure that grant-supported programs reach underserved and underrepresented populations in New York. A top priority of the ADK Quad-County Region SCR Program is to connect with new or emerging artists and arts/cultural organizations, as well as longer-established ones, that serve underrepresented or underserved people—with one stated goal being the encouragement and advancement of projects that represent diverse cultures and backgrounds in the four-county region.

“One of the hopes for the new local priority for funding is that it will highlight and spur further preservation of the arts, culture and history of such people as the Akwesasne as an indispensable component of world culture,” said Fred Balzac, ALCA’s SCR coordinator. “It is also hoped that this will encourage numerous members of the Akwesasne and other indigenous peoples to apply individually, as well as to collaborate either within their own community or between their community and/or those of other Native American/indigenous people and/or non-Native American/non-indigenous people.”

He also cited as a reason for the priority is the growing number of arts and cultural programs devoted to Native American themes and topics, such as one undertaken recently by the Plattsburgh-based Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System, a current and past SCR grantee. “Among our own recent SCR or Restart NY grant-supported projects, we’ve seen an increase, including such 2022 programs as ‘The Haudenosaunee Creation Story and Sculptures,’ presented by the Clinton County Historical Association in Plattsburgh, and ‘Stories of the People of the Longhouse,’ presented by the Lake Pleasant Public Library in Speculator, in Hamilton County,” Balzac noted.

Similar circumstances undergirded the decision to propose reviving the Individual Artist grants after a 10-year-or-so absence in this region. “Back then, it was thought that the few applications the then-named Decentralization, or DEC, Grant Program received in the Individual Artist category closely resembled certain Community Arts projects,” Balzac said. “However, the past couple of years we’ve received Community Arts applications that could’ve worked as well, if not better, in the Individual Artist category.

“Plus, given the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts as well as so many other parts of our society, we felt it was a good way to further support artists in our region—since the category funds the creation of works of art, not just their public presentations.”

 

Perseverance, Innovation and Creativity

Helping to fulfill the needs of the arts organizations and artists in the region is one of the aspects NYSCA implicitly recognized as being an objective of the additional funding provided for 2023. “We extend our immense gratitude for your organization’s perseverance, innovation, and creativity throughout these last two years of immeasurable challenges,” wrote Katherine Nicholls and Mara Manus, NYSCA’s Chair and Executive Director, respectively, in the award notification to ALCA. “Arts and culture will continue to lead our State through this historic recovery.”

As for the 2023 SCR application process itself, “How-to-Apply” seminars, which will be required for artists or sponsoring-organization representatives who have not applied since the 2021 cycle (and optional for those who have), are set to begin in February, with the application deadline occurring on Tuesday, March 28, at 11:59 pm.

Artists and arts enthusiasts who are not planning to apply, or to be involved in an application, for the 2023 SCR Program are encouraged to nominate themselves or people they know to serve as panel reviewers. (Members of applying organizations may serve as long as they are not the grant writer or the prospective project manager for the proposed program and, of course, will be required to recuse themselves from any evaluation of their organization’s project.) Also being sought are nonprofits of all kinds, not just arts organizations (e.g., service organizations such as a Kiwanis or Rotary club), to serve as fiscal sponsors.

To learn more about serving as a panel reviewer or fiscal sponsor, any aspect of the application process, or the SCR Program in general, please contact Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org and/or 518-588-7275. ♦

The Statewide Community Regrants program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by NYSCA.

 

Support Your Local Artists...

...and Arts Organizations Who Are Supported by the Adirondack Quad-County Region's 2022 Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Awards

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) is pleased to be supporting the following the recipients of 2022 Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) awards for Community Arts and Arts Education projects to be completed in most cases by December 31, 2022. With funds made available by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), ALCA has regranted a total of $91,000 for 49 projects throughout the four counties the Arts Center, as the region’s NYSCA-designated SCR site, serves: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties.

The SCR funding recipients and projects (listed with their location) are:

     •   Clinton County Historical Association, “Kasennisaks, ‘I’m Looking for a Name,’” Plattsburgh [C]

     •   Foothills Art Society, Inc., “Kevin Burt, Jazz and Blues” (Project A) and “1964, the Tribute” (Project B), Malone [F]

The SCR program was developed to ensure that New York State’s arts and cultural funding reaches every part of the state. The program forms the cornerstone of the partnership between NYSCA and local arts agencies throughout the state, providing a link between NYSCA and segments of communities that might not otherwise be able to access direct funding from NYSCA.

The ALCA grant program thanks all applicants who submitted funding proposals for the 2022 SCR awards, with special thanks both to (1) municipalities and nonprofit organizations such as the Town of Elizabethtown, the Town of North Elba, Adirondack Regional Theatre, East Branch Friends of the Arts, John Brown Lives! and the Schroon Lake Arts Council that served as fiscal sponsors for arts groups that are not officially recognized nonprofits or for individual artists; and (2) the individual artists and arts enthusiasts who, as volunteers, reviewed and evaluated this year's SCR applications.

To learn more about ALCA’s grant program, please contact SCR Coordinator Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org and/or 518-588-7275. For more information on ALCA’s programs and activities, please visit www.adirondackarts.org or contact the Arts Center at 518-352-7715. ♦

The Statewide Community Regrants program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

__________

*All projects are in the Community Arts category except where "Arts Education" is denoted.

County code: C = Clinton; E = Essex; F = Franklin; H = Hamilton.

 

ADK Quad-County 2021-22 Restart NY

“Mini-Grant” Arts Awards Announced

Expanded funding for arts organizations and artists in Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton Counties prioritizes live, in-person performances

The Arts Center is pleased to announce the recipients of the Restart NY Regrants 2021-22 “Mini-Grant” awards for arts projects to be completed by June 30, 2022. With funds made available by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), ALCA is regranting a total of $45,500 for 20 projects throughout the four counties the Arts Center, as the region’s Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) site, serves: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties.

The primary aim of this mini-grant cycle, which the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) rolled out in Round 2 of its overall Restart NY program—developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting restrictions on public gatherings such as arts events—has been to support the return of live, in-person public presentations. Priority was given to arts performances (e.g., dance, music concerts, theater)—categorized as Tier 1 projects. Non-performance-based projects that include a public presentation were also eligible for funding as Tier 2 projects. The minimum amount applicants could request was $1,000 and the maximum $2,500, with no matching funds required.

The mini-grant awards cover arts projects that have taken place since July 1, 2021 or that will happen by June 30, 2022. Because grants for projects that meet all eligibility criteria and other requirements spelled out in the guidelines were be awarded on a chronological basis, with Tier-1 projects prioritized over Tier-2 projects, applicants were encouraged to submit their applications as early as possible.

Funding by NYSCA was available retroactively for projects that took place by July 1, as well as prospectively for projects that will be completed by June 30 of this year. Attendance at a “How-to-Apply” seminar—designed to walk participants through the application process in an informal, easy-to-understand manner—was not required as it is for SCR Community Arts and Arts Education applications; but participation in one was strongly encouraged.

The 2021-22 mini-grant cycle represents expanded NYSCA funding for regions throughout New York State such as the Adirondack (ADK) Quad-County region to which ALCA’s grant program administers—in addition to the annual SCR (formerly known as “Decentralization/DEC”) grants.

The statewide DEC grant program was developed to ensure that New York State’s cultural funding reaches every part of the state. The program forms the cornerstone of the partnership between NYSCA and local arts agencies throughout the state, providing a link between NYSCA and portions of the community that might not otherwise be able to access funding from NYSCA.

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts grant program thanks all applicants who submitted funding proposals for the mini-grants, with special thanks to municipalities and nonprofit organizations such as the Town of Wilmington, Adirondack Wind Ensemble and John Brown Lives! that served as fiscal sponsors for arts groups that are not officially recognized nonprofits or for individual artists. To learn more about ALCA’s grant program, please contact SCR Coordinator Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org and/or 518-588-7275. For more information on ALCA’s programs and activities, please visit www.adirondackarts.org or contact the Arts Center at 518-352-7715. 

Statewide Community Regrants and Restart NY Mini-Grants are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

 

Bringing Live, In-Person Performances Back to Our Region

The Restart NY Regrants 2021-22 Mini-Grants are being awarded to 20 live, in-person, performance-based projects in music and theater, as follows:

The Statewide Community Regrants program is made possible with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by NYSCA.

 

Bring Home the Arts to Your Community

As the Statewide Community Regrant (SCR) site for the Adirondack (ADK) Quad-County region of Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties, the Arts Center encourages arts organizations, artists collectives and individual artists to consider applying for the next round of SCR Community Arts and Arts Education grants, which will be the 2024 cycle for eligible arts projects initiated and completed between January 1 and December 31, 2024. Applicants may propose up to three projects in one, two or three categories—Community Arts, Arts Education, and Individual Artist—for a funding request up to a total of $5,000 for one, two or three projects (Individual Artist grant commissions are all $2,500).

The SCR guidelines for such aspects as eligibility criteria, the role of fiscal sponsors, the application and grant-review process, evaluation criteria and grantee responsibilities are similar to those for the 2023 cycle and will be published on this site and available by email soon. Applications for Community Arts and Arts Education will be required to have a 10% match in terms of outside revenues (no match is required for Individual Artist applications), and attendance at a seminar—which will be held in-person and/or via Zoom—is required for new applicants and returning ones who did not apply for 2021 Decentralization (DEC) or 2022 or 2023 SCR funding. More information on SCR grants can be found further below and on the other three grant-related pages of this website. To learn more, you also can contact SCR Grant Coordinator Fred Balzac at fred@adirondackarts.org or 518-588-7275.

 

New Name, Same High Standards for Funding

“Statewide Community Regrants” is a new name for the popular and highly regarded arts-grant opportunity that had been known as “Decentralization (DEC) Grants” since the program’s inception in 1977.

The new name was chosen by NYSCA with a nod toward the grant program’s regional approach to encouraging and supporting arts programs throughout New York State and the emphasis on projects that enliven, nourish and inspire our communities. Regranting is what arts centers like ALCA and other venues that serve as SCR sites do with the grant funding they receive from NYSCA. Regrants are akin to a pipeline in which funds flow “downstream” to arts organizations, artist collectives and individual artists—with the ultimate beneficiaries being arts patrons and audience members.

For a list of 2021, 2020, and 2019 DEC grantees, please see the following materials:

2021 DEC grantees

2020 DEC grantees

2019 DEC grantees

 

ALCA: The SCR Site for the ADK Quad-County Region

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts SCR Coordinator for Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties is Fred Balzac.

The most recent ADK Quad-County Statewide Community Regrant (then called "Decentralization Grant") awards ceremony was held in Blue Mountain Lake at our home base, the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, on Saturday, May 4, 2019. The event honored the 2019 Decentralization Grant awardees. It was a successful event, well attended by our grantees—as the photos shown below demonstrate—as well as community members. The 2020 award ceremony was postponed indefinitely because of the restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2021 and 2022 ceremonies were not held because of upticks in COVID-19 cases in Hamilton County and elsewhere throughout our four-county region.

We hope to return to the tradition of an in-person awards ceremony as soon as the forecast for COVID-related conditions in our region indicate that an event can be scheduled far enough in advance for planning purposes, yet soon enough to be confident that precautions can be taken to ensure everyone's safety. 

 

Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Program

History and Purpose

Founded in 1977, the then-named "Decentralization (DEC)" grant program was developed to ensure that New York State's cultural funding reached every part of the state. The concept of decentralization has since become one of the most effective ways for the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to make arts support available to geographically, economically, and ethnically diverse segments of the state's population.

The program—renamed the "Statewide Community Regrants (SCR)" program by NYSCA in 2021—forms the cornerstone of the council’s partnership with local arts agencies throughout the state, providing a link between NYSCA and portions of the community that might not otherwise be able to access funding from the council.

Statewide Community Regrant funds are disbursed locally by regional and local arts agencies at the invitation of NYSCA. These SRC sites are charged as advocates and catalysts for arts and cultural development at the local level and provide a wide range of multi-arts programming and services for local communities, artists, and small organizations. Through SCR regrant funding, SCR sites provide project support to a wide range of professional, vocational, and educational arts and cultural offerings in their respective communities. The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA) in Blue Mountain Lake is the SCR site for the Adirondack (ADK) Quad-County region encompassing Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties.

The New York State Council on the Arts has developed broad guidelines that provide a framework for implementing the program, while giving the SCR sites the flexibility to tailor the program to the diverse communities that they serve. Funding decisions are based on evaluative criteria designed by each SCR site and approved by NYSCA staff. Much of the information provided here and on the other pages of this website is based on guidelines issued in 2022 for the 2023 grant cycle. Because guidelines typically do not change much from year to year, a review of the 2023-cycle guidelines will provide prospective applicants with a good idea of what will be in the 2024-cycle guidelines.

For the past several years, the ADK Quad-County Region SCR program has served as an umbrella for two distinct funding categories: Community Arts and Arts Education. In 2023, the Individual Artist category was revived after an absence of a decade or so.

Please note: Statewide Community Regrant applicants may submit up to three direct requests in any combination of the three categories—e.g., two Community Arts project requests plus one Arts Education project request—totaling no more than $5,000 (Individual Artist grant commissions are all $2,500). Nonprofit organizations that serve as fiscal sponsors can apply for up to three projects of their own totaling no more than $5,000; in other words, the project(s) for which they serve as a fiscal sponsor do not count toward their $5,000 cap.

Individual/multiple applicants, artists, and/or project managers for organizational applicants must be at least 18 years of age at the time of the application's submission. Organizations and individuals who apply directly to NYSCA for grant funding may not apply for any SCR regrants nor serve as a fiscal sponsor in the same fiscal-year cycle.

Please see the page on this website titled “Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) 2023 Cycle” for links to PDFs of the most recently available Community Arts and Arts Education grant guidelines.

 

Community Arts Grants

These grants provide support for arts and cultural projects to community-based organizations, groups, collectives, or artists. Community Arts grants provide funding to emerging professional artists and organizations whose projects promote the arts and enhance the cultural climate in the communities and neighborhoods where they live and operate.

An applicant organization must be a governmental or quasi-governmental entity, a tribal organization, or a designated New York State nonprofit incorporated, or registered to do business, in the state. An individual artist or collective may apply for SCR funds through a fiscal sponsor. The fiscal sponsor then becomes the “applicant organization” and must meet the same basic eligibility requirements as an applicant organization and provide the same required documents.

Most years, an SCR Community Arts grants would not fund more than 75% of the applicant’s total project budget (total cash expenses). The applicant's remaining project costs would then be covered through cash income/revenues such as membership fees, ticket sales, individual or business/ corporate donations, disbursements from the general fund, and/or grants from private foundations or other non-New York State sources, to be included in the project budget. However, in response to the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the ADK Quad-County SCR program eliminated the match altogether for 2021 applications and reduced the standard 25%-match requirement to 10% for the 2022 and 2023 applications. In other words, the applicants in each of those years were able to request up to 90% of their total project budget.

Community Arts grants support all forms of arts projects, including, but not limited to, dance, film, folk arts, literary arts, music, theater, video, visual arts, and multidisciplinary arts. Statewide Community Regrant-supported projects can be single events or part of a series. All Community Arts grant projects must be community-based and open to the general public.

Arts Education Grants

This category of SCR grants funds sequential, arts-education projects that take place in K-12 schools during the school day or after school or projects occurring at community-based learning centers for youth or adult learners or both. Arts Education grants serve to bring teaching artists and their classroom skills into dedicated learning environments and support all genres of the arts, including, but not limited to, dance, film, folk arts, literary arts, music, theater, video, visual arts, and multidisciplinary arts. Focusing on the exploration of art and the artistic/creative process with an emphasis placed on the depth and quality of that process, projects must provide:

  • Skills-based study that incorporates one or more art forms and includes a minimum of three sequential learning sessions
  • In-depth, age-appropriate learning opportunities
  • Hands-on, participatory creation that may culminate in an exhibit, demonstration, reading, production, or other kind of public presentation
  • Stated learning goals, methodologies, and outcomes and a means for evaluation

The applicant of record must be an individual teaching artist, an artist collective, or a designated New York State nonprofit incorporated, or registered to do business, in the state. Public schools are ineligible to apply directly. Artists or collectives from outside the county in which the project is taking place may apply using a nonprofit organization from within the county as a fiscal sponsor. The fiscal sponsor then becomes the “applicant organization” and must meet the same basic eligibility requirements as an applicant organization and provide the same required documents.

In response to the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the ADK Quad-County Region SCR Program has reduced the previously standard 25%-match requirement to 10%—i.e., Arts Ed applicants may apply for up to 90% of their total project budget.

 

 

For a copy of the blank Excel budget forms required for use in the next cycle of SCR funding applications, please email the grant coordinator at fred@adirondackarts.org.

 

The Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts is always seeking individuals who have an interest in the arts to serve as peer-review panelists for the next cycle of SCR funding applications. We are looking for panelists throughout our service region of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties. 

To learn more about serving on a grant-review panel, please click here.