NYC arts groups face ‘existential’ challenge with Trump cuts to federal funding

New York City cultural organizations are figuring out how to grapple with the loss of federal funding two weeks after the Trump administration began to abruptly withdraw arts funding granted by the National Endowment for the Arts.

For large well-funded New York City Ballet, a $20,000 NEA grant represented 0.02% of its budget in 2023, the most recent year available in public documents. But for some smaller arts groups, the lost funding poses an existential threat. It’s a shift that could have ripple effects on the city’s cultural life — especially for less mainstream arts groups — as some organizations have already cut back on staff and are now scrambling to find money.

“We’ve definitely had to make major cuts,” said Anne Hiatt, co-founder of Opera on Tap, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that brings opera into unusual locations like bars, playgrounds and the streets.

Opera on Tap lost its $30,000 NEA grant, which represents about 5.6% of the organization’s 2025 budget, Hiatt said.

“I’ve taken a major cut, we’ve laid off most of our staff, we’ve had to do pay cuts and hour cuts for anybody still left just to make sure that we can meet our obligations,” Hiatt said. The 2025 grant was to support the commission and development of a new interactive opera where audience members follow performers on the street.

Opera on Tap is furloughing staff this summer and seeking new corporate sponsorship, and is not counting on any federal support in its next budget, she said.

The NEA awarded $8.5 million to 326 different arts groups in New York State this fiscal year, according to its records. A crowdsourced survey of groups with lost funding, created by theater director Annie Dorsen, shows some $5 million reported lost for groups in the NYC metro area.

For smaller groups like Triangle, an arts residency program running since the early 1980s, its $35,000 NEA grant represents a whopping 17.5% of its 2025 budget, according to Executive Director Nova Benway.

However, Triangle also benefited from a quirk in the program that allows some NEA grant recipients to receive full or partial payment.

While the letters notifying organizations that their grants would be terminated went out in early May, the actual terminations generally take effect May 31, according to several organizations surveyed.

That means NEA grantees can receive partial payment for expenses incurred through May 31, along with a limited advance on 30 days’ worth of future costs.

Because the timing of Triangle’s grant happens to line up with the deadline, it will see the full $35,000 reimbursed, Benway said.

The National Endowment for the Arts, where many staff have resigned this month, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A $100,000 grant was awarded to the National Alliance for Musical Theatre to support its flagship “Festival of New Musicals,” which presents a roster of new shows to industry insiders each year and has introduced productions like the Tony award-winning musical “Come From Away” to the world.

Executive Director Betsy Ann Militello said the organization is already paying bills incurred by the upcoming fall festival, and hopes to have some of those funds reimbursed by the May 31 deadline. The grant represents more than 8% of its 2024 budget, which is the most recent publicly available outlay.

In the absence of this federal support, several nonprofits are applying to a newly launched Reserve Fund Grant program from the New York State Council on the Arts, which offers grants of up to $75,000 for certain nonprofits with budgets under $3 million.

Council Director Erika Mallin said the fund emerged after the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed how vulnerable the arts can be to sudden drops in funding.

“I’m extremely happy that we have this fund at this time,” Mallin said. “The plan was that this fund could help with anything majorly unexpected, and here’s a massive, unexpected thing happening again.”

Representatives from around 800 organizations attended a recent webinar about the program, Mallin said, and roughly 500 have already begun the application process. With only $1.76 million in the fund, it may already be oversubscribed.

The abrupt nature of the NEA cuts has left groups that were in the middle of building out new staff or programming particularly exposed.

At Dances for a Variable Population, which promotes dance and movement for older adults, interim Managing Director Leigh Mickelson said the organization was in a growth pattern, but may have to cut staff or programs after losing its $40,000 NEA grant. They are exploring corporate sponsorship for the first time, she said.

“Nonprofits are used to being scrappy,” Mickelson said. “But this is kind of existential.”