Recently, at the 6/16/2025 Grants Committee meeting, three Commissioners discussed Metro Arts staff recommendations that will deeply impact Nashville artists. This comes after months of gaslighting that ‘no major changes’ will occur, but, as is a given in white supremacy, the program Art Commissioners want to cut back is the most equity-driven, for-all-Nashville program: Thrive. None of these recommendations are based on concrete community feedback or robust community engagement.

Each recommendation is to maintain the status quo, which is to defund the roots.

To date, this Commission has attempted the following:

1) privatization via the Community Foundation of Middle TN or the Frist Foundation, so that there is less oversight and less anti-discrimination accountability

2) cancel all Thrive applications

3) added fiscal sponsorship as a way to route funds to General Operating (overwhelming majority white-led), and after a petition of over 100+ Nashvillians saying NO to fiscal sponsorship.

Now, they want to do the following major changes:

1) Thrive will be capped at maximum of $15,000 per project (that does not mean full funding).

Not only is this a step backward in addressing inequity, but this also means that less money will go to BIPOC and working class neighborhoods and projects will have to be smaller and resources more scarce. Metro Arts is demanding artists create with less.

This $5,000 cut could mean an additional artist is not brought on to the project, or an ideal space’s rent is too high now, or the material cannot be sourced.

2) Fiscal sponsorship will still exist, though declared a burden on artists and despite 108 artists saying they are against fiscal sponsorship as a mandatory policy.

Despite the failure of the policy to be equitable, with 82% of ALL funds this year going through General Operating orgs, Metro Arts staff will tap into the $5,000 they’re taking from artists to funnel $750 to each fiscal sponsor.

Again, fiscal sponsorship in Metro Arts’ system is very atypical and exploitative. Sponsors do NOT fill out the applications, do the reporting, or execute the projects.

The inequitable impact of FY25 fiscal sponsorship can be traced through the data, particularly that 82% of Metro Arts' $3.2 million went to General Operating (predominantly white-led) organizations: https://www.artsequitynashville.org/s/FY25-GO-Fiscal-Sponsors.pdf

Instead, I endorse the Arts Equity Nashville plan for FY26:

Arts Equity Nashville’s policy recommendations for FY26 remain:

1) Pay the artists. No to fiscal sponsorship.

2) Enforce a funding cap. No organization with a budget over $3.2 million [greater than the funds available] should be eligible for Metro Arts grants.

3) Fully fund Thrive. Fully fund community.

4) Nourish the roots. All organizations with budgets under $500,000 should be fully-funded according to their percentage.

We ask that Councilmembers do not approve the FY26 grants criteria as they are inequitable, regressive, and discriminatory.