Seventy-four arts and cultural organizations in the Detroit metropolitan area will share $12.2 million for their operations over the next three years in a collaboration between The Kresge Foundation, Erb Family Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation and DeRoy Testamentary Foundation.

The four foundations shared a single application and review process before making their independent decisions. This partnership streamlined the process for grant-seekers while improving the information-gathering and analysis for the foundations making the grants. Previously, only Kresge and Erb had collaborated on their applications.

Leaders from the four foundations underscored the importance of the funded organizations to the Detroit metropolitan community:

• “The energy of arts and culture has helped sustain us through hard times and is integral to our revitalization today,” said Wendy Lewis Jackson, managing director of Kresge’s Detroit Program. “The organizations that we are funding nurture artists of tomorrow, connect us to their work today and hold our artistic legacy.”
• “The DeRoy Testamentary Foundation is pleased to contribute to our community’s vitality by supporting arts and cultural organizations in metro Detroit. Fostering creativity and providing venues and programs in which our community can participate and enjoy is critical to our vibrancy,” said Julie Rodecker, president, DeRoy Testamentary Foundation
• “We are proud to partner in this streamlined and efficient grants process. Arts and culture are the heartbeat of societies. Strengthening the community of arts organizations, together, through this program, is a privilege, and all people in the region will greatly benefit,” said Neil C. Hawkins, president, Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation.
• “We are thrilled to provide core operating support to a diverse group of arts & culture organizations from across Detroit.” said Melanca Clark, president of the Hudson-Webber Foundation. “These organizations  reflect and contribute to the unique character and vitality of Detroit and Detroiters. We’re so pleased to participate in the Detroit Arts Support program which helps ensure the sustainability of the sector and its ability to thrive.”

The Detroit Arts Support grants provide unrestricted operating dollars to nonprofits in the performing, visual and literary arts, as well as to arts service, education, media and broadcasting, and cultural organizations. To be eligible, organizations needed 501(c)3 status, at least one employee, annual revenues of at least $100,000 and a record of presenting programs for at least two years.

Grants from the individual foundations range generally range from $100,000 to $5,000 per year based on size of organization and other factors.

Grant recipients included a wide range of organizations from the Detroit Symphony and the Detroit Zoological Society, to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, to the Grosse Pointe War Memorial Association and the Scarab Club. (See full list below.)

Meanwhile, the organization CultureSource, in a companion foundation-funded initiative, is set next week to announce 41 grants of $3,000 each to support often smaller and younger organizations that do not meet the Detroit Arts Support applicant criteria.

Kresge launched the Detroit Arts Support initiative in 2007, and Erb began partnering with Kresge on the application and review process in 2010.

Including the grants announced today, Kresge and Erb have contributed and committed roughly $46 million – about $29 million from Kresge and about $17 million from Erb.

This year, the Hudson-Webber and DeRoy Testamentary foundations, both longtime supporters of local arts organizations, joined the single-application initiative.

In addition to expanding foundation partners, this year’s Detroit Arts Support process was revamped in several ways:

• TDC nonprofit consulting group, as in the past, conducted a financial review of each applicant. This year, organizations received a copy of their financial review, and TDC reviewed findings with any interested organization.
• Focus groups discussed each application with applicants invited as observers. The focus groups included experts in community development, K-12 education, and nonprofit administration.

Sharing this information with all Detroit Arts Support applicants is a significant benefit to organizations, said Jackson: “The transparency gives arts organizations solid feedback on their work and a better understanding on their financial strengths and weakness.”

The 74 organizations receiving funding through Detroit Arts Support are: