How to Talk About a Terminated NEA Grant

After the first notifications from the National Endowment of the Arts to organizations, Topos Partnership created this communications tool for your public communication about a recently rescinded or terminated NEA grant. You can use this guide to create a statement about the intended community impact of a lost grant. Of course, you can and should mention this loss in the context of other canceled funding for services to people in your region, like: health care, nutrition, housing, environment, community development, etc.

This guide is based on Topos Partnership research for communicating about the arts to create broad public support and building understanding that the arts are a public good. While it’s easy to focus on the amount of money threatened, it’s not just about the amount of money in the grant—people will care because of the impact on your community!

First: Think about the overarching goal of your project: what is the overall community benefit? How is your THING going to benefit everyone who lives in the area? What can you say about it that will be of interest to pretty much anyone? Set expectations with an aspirational statement, one that clearly benefits the broader community using natural sentences, such as: We just learned that the NEA has terminated (or rescinded) our project that we created to…. 

• Bring people together in our community
• Create the neighborhood we all wish for
• Put our community on the map
• Create a healthier community

Second: What did you expect the grant to do? How can you describe it in a common-sense way, in one sentence? Try leaving out the jargon and insider language that requires explanation to people outside the ‘family.’ What is it? Explain HOW you will accomplish the goal you established, for example: Paying artists to…

• Make art that tells stories of your place
• Develop events that build neighborhood connections and engagement
• Create campaigns about health services
• Put on a show that will bring people into the neighborhood where they will connect with others and enjoy drinks or dinner too

Third: Can you say something more specific that will connect with a broad audience? What makes this project relevant to the larger community — even people who might not attend or see it? For example:

• Like everyone who lives here, we value our reputation as an extraordinary place. We are working to create a campaign to put our neighborhood/city/region on the map.
• Like you, we think a lot about access to the arts. We want to provide free programming to foster community connections and a healthy place.
• We want to bring people together, to give community members a chance to come together to share ideas and get to know each other.
• We know that people are attracted to vital and vibrant neighborhoods and this event will contribute to making our place special

Fourth: Add your call to action. What can people do about it?

• Contact our representative in Congress at [include phone number]. Add a few words about what they should say to the person who answers the phone.
• Bring people together in our community to make this a connected and healthy place, where we all support each other’s goals. Here’s how you can help….
• Contribute funds for performances (or other funded projects) that will benefit our community by…. [state community benefit, try not to focus solely on the math of an economic benefit] Can you donate $X?

This document is adapted from a section of a forthcoming communications toolkit created for organizations sponsoring creative initiatives by Topos Partnership. The original work we edited for this purpose was created by Shannon Daut and Margy Waller.