Philadelphia Cultural Fund releases record-high arts and culture grants

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The Philadelphia Cultural Fund has announced one of its largest disbursements of grants to arts and culture programs, totaling $5.6 million to 322 organizations.

The money came from the city of Philadelphia’s 2025-2026 budget, which increased its annual allotment for the arts to $5 million, and from the William Penn Foundation, which committed $8 million to a multiyear Community Impact Grant program.

The funding round does not reflect Philadelphia’s current fiscal year 2027 budget that went into effect July 1, which reduced the amount of money for the arts to $3.5 million.

Cultural Fund Executive Director Gabriela Sanchez said this round of grants is the most given by PCF and the first to represent changes to the PCF’s funding process. She said she is reorganizing the fund to distribute grants more equitably, to more organizations.

“We’ve been reimagining and testing things out while trying to hold on to the historical practice this organization has done, which has lent itself to be trust-based in so many ways,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said the combination of public and private money was used to develop a two-tier granting model. The city’s $5 million allotment funded the Arts and Culture grants, which awards $12,875 to nonprofit or fiscally sponsored programs with a budget of $3 million or less.

That eligibility cap was raised from a previous $1.5 million to make more mid-sized organizations eligible, such as the Chestnut Hill Conservancy, which conserves and celebrates the history and architecture of Chestnut Hill and the lower Wissahickon watershed. With assets of about $2 million, the conservancy had never before been eligible for the PCF grant.

“This investment recognizes that preserving history, architecture, landscapes, and community stories is an important part of Northwest Philadelphia’s cultural life,” Executive Director David Gesst said in a statement.

The second tier of PCF’s granting model is the Community Impact Grants funded by the William Penn Foundation, intended for smaller organizations with an annual budget of less than $500,000. The pool of applicants came from the Art and Culture grantees, who went through a secondary review process to determine 140 Community Impact grantees.

The Community Impact Grant awardees, such as Cambodian American Girls Empowered, the Black Pearl Orchestra and COSACOSA Art at Large, got a double scoop from PCF.

“That is an additional $10,000, plus a $500 capacity-building stipend. So the Community Impact Grant group is getting a total of $23,375 in funding each, which is historic,” Sanchez said. “To give the folks who are the smallest, a larger grant size feels really powerful to me. Most of the time those organizations are not paying themselves. They’re volunteer work. They’re making something out of nothing, always.”

PCF is engaged in strategic planning to reconsider how it distributes funding. According to its website, the new funding model will rest on four pillars: equitable access to funds, creating collaborative spaces, communicating the value of arts and culture, and ongoing sustainability.

The first phase of PCF’s strategic plan is expected to be released this fall.

The personal excitement Sanchez exhibits for the current round of funding and the future strategic plan is tempered by the reality that the next funding cycle, to be determined in 2027, will likely be much smaller as the city has just passed a budget that drops arts funding to $3.5 million.

“There’s no way we can continue to fund the sector at $3.5 million. It’s not sustainable. We need a COLA [Cost of Living Adjustment], at least,” she said. “PCF has been getting $3.5 [million] for years. We need $5 million, minimum. I’m hoping that there will be some changes in the future.”

Editor’s Note: The William Penn Foundation is a WHYY supporter. WHYY News produces independent, fact-based news content for audiences in Greater Philadelphia, Delaware and South Jersey.