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Toe River Arts | North Carolina CARES for Arts Grants

The application deadline for this grant has passed.

As part of the state’s spending plan for federal CARES Act funding, $9.4 million was designated to provide direct aid to arts councils and arts organizations in an effort to mitigate business disruptions caused by COVID-19. These funds will be distributed on a per-capita basis to all North Carolina counties with a population of less than 1 million people. It was the primary intent of the legislature to provide funds to nonprofit arts organizations. Toe River Arts will retain a percentage of Yancey and Mitchell counties CARES funds to mitigate business interruption expenses and subgrant the remaining funds to eligible artists and arts organizations.  To encourage a more diverse method of distributionToe River Arts will subgrant to:  

  • Individual artists 
  • Nonprofit organizations who have strong arts programming (at least 25%)  
  • Unincorporated arts groups or LLC’s  

Eligibility:  

Individual artists, unincorporated arts groups or LLC’s that meet the following criteria are eligible to apply: 

  • Must have arts and culture as a core part of the business (25% or more of budget)
  • Business or artist studio must be located in Mitchell or Yancey counties
  • Must demonstrate the costs of business interruption caused by COVID-19 and/or increased expenses incurred by pandemic-related activities. 
  • Applicant must submit expenses related directly to business interruption and claim these expenditures as business expenses on a federal tax return.  

Organizations that meet the following criteria are eligible to apply: 

  • Must be a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization located in Mitchell or Yancey Counties. 
  • Must have arts and culture in the agency’s mission statement; or must have arts and cultural programming as a core activity (25% or more of budget most recently approved before September 1, 2020). 
  • Must demonstrate the costs of business interruption caused by COVID-19 and/or increased expenses incurred by pandemic-related activities.

Funding: 

Each qualifying organization, art group or artist will be able to apply for a maximum of $2,000. Applications are due November 9, 2020. Every organization, group or individual that qualifies will be funded. The amount of each subgrant will be determined by the county’s collective total of eligible claims – not requiring panel review.

The purpose of the funds is to offset business disruption and/or expenses incurred due to COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and December 30, 2020. The following expenses can be considered:   

  • paid salaries and benefits (including contractors) 
  • on-going operating expenses 
  • costs associated with canceling programs and creating virtual programs 
  • COVID-related safety and cleaning measures 

For the purpose of this grant program, revenue losses are not considered for mitigation.  North Carolina CARES for Arts funding cannot reimburse any expenses already paid for by other federal relief funds such as PPP loans, direct grants from the NEA, and stimulus grants issued by the North Carolina Arts Council.