Now in its fifth year, the Moody Fund for the Arts is awarding $450,000 to 52 small arts organizations in Dallas, a record dollar figure for the Galveston-based Moody Foundation’s granting arm.
Arts organizations ranging from a cultural heritage foundation to a dance council to small publishing house Deep Vellum have received grants of up to $12,000. Six of the groups – Arts Mission Oak Cliff, Asian Film Foundation of Dallas, Indicates Dance Company, kNOwBOX Dance, No Limits Arts Theater and Ollimpaxqui Ballet Company – received their first grant.
“We decided to create a unique endowment that would support Dallas’ small, growing, diverse and vibrant arts community,” Frances Moody-Dahlberg, executive director and president of the Moody Foundation, said in a press release. “We wanted to help these organizations realize their creative vision with projects and programs across our city. After five years, we are more than satisfied with the results and excited about what lies ahead.
Last year, amid the throes of the pandemic and its outsized effect on the arts, the Moody Foundation awarded $400,000 to 54 organizations. Grant amounts have more than doubled from 2019 ($175,000) to 2020 ($355,000) in response to the pandemic, and the fund (which is managed by the AT&T Performing Arts Center) has implemented a process expedited review.
“The arts are vital to Dallas,” Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in the press release. “And during an extraordinarily difficult time, the Moody Fund for the Arts has provided a lifeline to many of our small arts organizations that fuel our city’s culture of creativity.”
All organizations go through a two-step review process in order to qualify for grants. This year’s advisory review board, which leads the first tier, included Wolford McCue, the former president and executive director of The Arts Community Alliance, known as TACA; Katie McGuinness of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra; Dallas Children’s Theater Artie Olaisen; Nycole Ray of the Dallas Black Dance Theatre; and Priscilla Rice of the city’s Arts and Culture Advisory Board.
The second stage of the review was led by the Moody Fund’s Executive Committee, consisting of Benjamin Espino, Acting Director of the Office of Arts and Culture; philanthropist Gwen Echols; and philanthropist Tracey Nash-Huntley.
The Moody Foundation established the Moody Fund for the Arts in 2017, endowing it with $10 million to be awarded annually to nonprofit arts organizations supported by the city’s Office of Arts and Culture and with budgets less than $1 million. In exchange for this—and the Moody Foundation’s $12 million contribution to repay the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s capital debt—the city renamed the Dallas City Performance Hall to the Arts District. in Moody Performance Hall.
To date, the fund has awarded $1,530,000 to 79 organizations.
Dana Gerber, Arts & Entertainment journalist. Dana Gerber is a reporter and covers a variety of culture, entertainment and arts stories at the Dallas Morning News. She previously articled at the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine and Bethesda Magazine in Maryland. She graduated in May from Emerson College in Boston with a degree in writing, literature and publishing.
dana.gerber@dallasnews.com @DanaGerber6
