Seattle Office of Arts & Culture Announces 2023-2025 Centering Art & Racial Equity (C.A.R.E.) Grant Awardees

Mayor Bruce Harrell | Mayor Bruce Harrell Official Headshot

By Seattle City Wire Report

Jun 12, 2023

241 Local Arts & Culture Organizations Selected As C.A.R.E. Grant Partners

The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) is excited to announce the awardees for the 2023-2025 Centering Art & Racial Equity (C.A.R.E.) grant. This grant is investing $1,941,000 in funding to 241 Seattle-based organizations. C.A.R.E., previously known as Civic Partners, is ARTS’ refocused funding program that supports race and social justice-centered organizations. The current name reflects the positive evolution of the program over the past 12 years. 

“Centering Art & Racial Equity (C.A.R.E.) embodies ARTS’ values of racial equity and social cohesion and puts these at the forefront. We are proud to invest in these brilliant partners and anticipate their inclusive programming and forward-thinking as they travel within the arts sectors.”

royal alley-barnes, Interim Director, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

The C.A.R.E. grant awards three consecutive years of funding to Seattle arts and culture, heritage, and arts service organizations with a minimum three-year history of providing accessible programming for Seattle residents and visitors. Organizations funded through the C.A.R.E grant center an arts-focused mission, are aiming to be anti-racist and who value, implement, and uphold inclusive practices through an intersectional racial equity lens. Through this grant over 200 Seattle-based arts and cultural organizations are joining other collegial organizations to create a more equitable, vibrant, and relevant arts sector.

In this cycle of C.A.R.E. grant funding 60% of funded dollars are going towards BIPOC and BIPOC-Progressing organizations. Also, for the first time Indigenous organizations are receiving the highest average grant award and 34% of the funding for BIPOC organizations is going towards Black organizations. Across the 241 organizations there have been significant investments in racial equity, ranging from hiring, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) consultants or coordinators; forming IDEA committees; creating racial equity strategic plans; increasing partnerships and programming that center BIPOC artists; evolving decision-making processes to create more equitable collaboration models; and increasing artist, staff, volunteer and board diversity.

“Every organization has a role in creating a more equitable city, and Seattle’s arts and cultural sector has an incredible reputation throughout North America for leading the way in working towards greater racial equity.”

Kathy Hsieh, Cultural Investments Strategist, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture

In 2023, there was a 21% increase in C.A.R.E grant applications compared to the previous 2019 cycle and 28% of the awardee organizations are new.

An example of programs to be presented by awarded organizations include:

A collaboration between Pork Filled Productions, the oldest Asian American sketch comedy troupe in Seattle, with Jet City Improv to produce “The Joy Market” – a production that features the first cast of all improvisers of color in Jet City’s 30-year history.
The creation of an African Cultural Arts Center with ADEFUA, an African cultural organization.
Theatre training programs that teach the process of theatre while accessing the healing power of Native cultural traditions through Red Eagle Soaring, which exists to empower urban Native American youth.
Deaf Spotlight’s Short Play Festival featuring original, never-been-produced short plays by, for, and with Deaf theatre artists.

What Awardees Are Saying

“Thanks so much. We are celebrating this outstanding news. This has made our day! Our team works so hard day in and day out. This news affirms that we are on the right path toward community empowerment through our work.”

LaNesha DeBardelaben, Northwest African American Museum

“WOW! We are amazed and elated to receive this incredible and encouraging news! We are thrilled and grateful and humbled to be an awardee of the C.A.R.E grant.”

Berette Macaulay and Savita Krishnamoorthy, Black Cinema Collective

“This year was the first time we were able to bring together people from various backgrounds. For the STFF [Seattle Turkish Film Festival] posters and visuals, we have commissioned female and LGBTQ+ artists from Turkey and Ukraine to give voice and artistic freedom to historically marginalized minorities. On our Short Film Competition Jury, we had 3 jurors from very different backgrounds (BIPOC, Eastern European).”

Turkish American Cultural Association of WA

“We regard racial equity as a top priority, one that is essential to our progress and growth. . . 75% of the authors in the Word Words and Hugo Lit Series are ethnically diverse writers and poets. Hugo House is committed to presenting writers from marginalized and underserved communities. We are excited about the partnerships we have developed…”

Hugo House

“More than just words, our commitment to racial justice is defined by action. Creating a five-year strategic framework in 2019, and adopting the framework in 2020, was one of the first steps we took in committing to real and lasting change within our organization. We created this framework through a year-long strategic planning process that involved analysis of relevant data and interviews involving more than 100 people in the community.”

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Meet the 2023 – 2025 Awardees