Denali Arts Council receives Alaska State Council on the Arts grant

Disclaimer: Phillip Manning is an outgoing board member for the Denali Arts Council.

On Monday, the Alaska State Council on the Arts announced its grant awards for the first quarter of the fiscal year. In total, ASCA awarded just over half-a-million dollars in operating and project support throughout the state. Grants ranged in size from just over $500 to $21,000.

The Denali Arts Council was the sole recipient of an ASCA grant in this round of awards. The DAC received a $12,000 annual grant for operating support, which was the largest grant in its category.

DAC Executive Director Colleen Love says that the grant applications are scored based on the variety of activities, number of art events per-capita, and other criteria, and that DAC tends to perform well on those metrics. Love says that the grant is equivalent to DAC’s annual insurance cost, plus about two months’ worth of heating.

Colleen Love says the ASCA grant is a significant portion of Denali Arts Council’s operating funds. She says that, while the grant program escaped budget cuts in the last legislative session, that the future may not be as certain for ASCA’s funding in the future. The state council is funded through the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.

Keren Lowell with the Alaska State Council on the Arts says that it is possible that additional programs in the Upper Valley could receive funding later in the year, but that nothing has been determined yet.