As grants deadline rapidly approaches, individual artists worry about getting left behind

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• It wasn’t until March 7 – more than two months after the application period opened and 18 days before it closes – that the Fresno Arts Council and six designated nonprofit organizations finalized the organizations serving as fiscal sponsors. That left artists – assuming they learned of the development – little time to complete the complicated application process. “It’s true that we haven’t provided that information earlier, but there was no way to do so. We had to first learn [which nonprofits] were willing to step up,”  said Lilia González Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council, which is running the grants program. 

After the grant application period closes, applications will be scored, with grants totaling at least $5 million awarded in the spring by Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, an oversight body created by Measure P. Nonprofit arts organizations – large and small – are expected to receive the largest percentage of the $5 million. But it’s impossible to predict how much individual artists could receive because of “too many unknown variables,” González Chávez said. The biggest variable: how many artists find a fiscal sponsor.

Concerns of individual artists

Unpacking the problems facing individual artists requires something of a Measure P history lesson. In 2018, a majority of Fresno voters supported the 30-year, 3/8-cent sales tax increase, with 88% of the generated millions going to parks and 12% to arts. A legal battle followed, but Measure P ultimately prevailed. None of the 12% has yet reached the arts community. 

Measure P makes no provision for individuals to receive grants, instead stating the money should go to nonprofit arts organizations. But that began to change last summer.  At community meetings hosted by the Arts Council, artists showed up in large numbers to advocate for being included in Measure P funding, and as a result, eligibility for individuals (with a fiscal sponsor) was added to all-important grant guidelines.

What is a fiscal sponsor and how does the relationship with an artist work? A  sponsor is a registered 501c3 tax-exempt nonprofit recognized by the Internal Revenue Service, and it must be based in Fresno for Measure P funding. Also, a sponsor cannot simply pass along Measure P  money to an artist and be done. The grant is actually awarded to the fiscal sponsor, who must provide guidance and support. and ensure that the artist completes his or her work, González Chávez said.  The relationship isn’t intended to last indefinitely.

But these details are theoretical unless individual artists can get Measure P money, and some in the arts community aren’t hopeful this will happen in 2024. “We’re just feeling stuck right now,” said Lopez of Dulce Upfront. Many artists who connect with Dulce Upfront and other grassroots arts organizations are leery of what Lopez calls the “nonprofit industrial complex.” She shares that wariness and believes Fresno’s large arts organizations expect to receive “a good chunk of the Measure P money to keep alive and sustainable. But you have to ask yourself: why are organizations with a long history struggling? I don’t know the answer.”

Speaking generally, Lopez said some nonprofit arts organizations have staff who can make a “lackluster” project look good enough to secure grant funding. “You have to know how to speak the language. Then you have others who are doing phenomenal work, but they don’t know how to navigate the system.”

To help artists figure out that system, Lopez  and others in her network held their own informational meetings about Measure P. Many of the artists who came either didn’t know about Measure P or didn’t believe they could get grants.

At first they were excited, but then problems became apparent. Dulce Upfront, for example, decided on the advice of its financial advisers that it could not serve as a fiscal sponsor despite wanting to. Sponsors can receive up to 10% of Measure P grants for administrative work, but that amount would not cover Dulce Upfront’s expenses in the role, Lopez said.

The Labyrinth Art Collective, another small nonprofit arts organization in Fresno, is in a similar situation. “We’re limited in our capacity,” said Labyrinth’s Alicia Rodriguez. “It’s not in our capabilities just yet, but in the future I’d love to consider it.”

The paradox is that smaller organizations like Labyrinth – that have the “passion” to serve individual artists – don’t currently have the administrative infrastructure, Rodriguez said. As a result, many individual artists feel “a door is being closed” to them, she added. 

Labyrinth and Dulce Upfront both plan to apply for Measure P organizational grants, which could boost their potential to act as fiscal sponsors in the future, Rodriguez and Lopez said.

‘A big wall’

But for now, there’s a “huge barrier” blocking many artists – particularly younger ones with the potential to transform the city’s creative scene, Lopez said. Their reaction is blunt: “Artists are, like, ‘This is really a big wall.’ ”

The Munro Review spoke to several younger artists about Measure P and fiscal sponsorship.

Devon Antonio would like to stage an art exhibit telling the story of his grandfather and other Filipino farmworkers. Antonio – a student at the University of California at Merced – went to an informational meeting about Measure P but decided not to apply for a grant. He said “a huge factor” was the need to find a fiscal sponsor, adding he might try in the future.

In the meantime, Antonio hopes to see Measure P nurture individual artists and emerging arts organizations, even if that means larger arts institutions get less. “It’s time to start investing in new ways,” he said. “If all the money is funneled into organizations that already exist then we won’t see a change in the arts community and what that community can do for the city.”

Those larger arts organizations could be expected to robustly defend their track record and contributions to the Fresno cultural scene. But after reaching out to a number of those organizations, The Munro Review either received no response or could not persuade any administrator to go on the record.

There’s room for speculation in terms of their seeming reluctance to scrap in public with arts community critics. A longtime observer of Fresno’s arts and culture community, who asked not to be identified, said large organizations that stand to receive the most money might conclude there’s no benefit to commenting at this time. “They may not want to be seen as being either supportive or critical of the process because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” the observer said. That uncertainty breeds caution and silence.

Art therapy and the id

 The vagaries of fiscal sponsorship are playing out in one artistic Fresno couple: Jade and Goku McAfee. She found a sponsor; he did not (at least not yet).

Jade is finishing up a master’s degree in social work and would use a Measure P grant to provide expressive arts therapy, which can include drama, visual arts and sculpture. She would like to work in intergenerational spaces that cater to marginalized communities. 

Jade’s fiscal sponsor is Mighty Community Advocacy, where Jade collaborates. The fiscal sponsorship “emerged as the next step in extending our work together,” she said. “I was surprised and overjoyed. But it was a lot of luck.” That need for luck is contrary to the spirit of Measure P, she said, because the initiative seeks “to level the playing field. It’s not about privilege or luck.”

Nishea Trinidad, executive director of Mighty Community Advocacy, said Jade has a “beautiful plan” that fits the mission of the nonprofit. Mighty Community Advocacy was “founded for youth who are in need of advocacy in our country’s current oppressive systems such as hospitals, courts, and educational institutions,” Trinidad said. “We believe that all of our youth deserve body autonomy, trauma-informed care, agency over their own cases, access to culturally appropriate healing arts, and a thoughtful supportive reentry to a supportive peer community.”

Mighty Community Advocacy intends to apply for two Measure P grants.

Doug Hoagland / The Munro Review

Goku McAfee is hoping for a Measure P fiscal sponsor. “It’s kind of like, shit, where do I look?” he says.

Meanwhile, Goku continues his search for a fiscal sponsor. He would like a Measure P grant for a project to visually illustrate people’s psyches: the ego (represented by a photo), the superego (a painted portrait by Goku) and the id (an abstract portrait by Goku).

Speaking to The Munro Review on Feb. 26, Goku said he was unsure where he could find a fiscal sponsor and had given up – reluctantly – on applying for a grant. He expressed frustration: “It just seems like there’s all this red tape.”

On March 14, The Munro Review checked back to see whether he knew about the March 7 agreement by the six nonprofits to serve as fiscal sponsors. The organizations, with contact information, are listed on the website of the Fresno Arts Council. 

Goku said he didn’t know about the list, but he planned to contact Arte Americas, which is on the list. He had a request for the Fresno Arts Council: “Extend the damn application deadline.”

Sponsoring filmmakers

Besides Arte Americas, the five other nonprofit arts organizations agreeing to serve as fiscal sponsors are:

• Community Media Access Collaborative (CMAC)

• Alliance for California Traditional Arts

• Emerge Arts Projects, Inc.

• Youth Orchestras of Fresno

• Lao Community Cultural Center of Fresno (LCCCF)

CMAC is a public service media organization with a history of fiscal sponsorship that started before the Measure P grants process. The Munro Review is sponsored by CMAC.

CMAC does not take fiscal sponsorship lightly, said Executive Director Byran Harley. “When we act as a fiscal sponsor for someone else, we’re sharing our tax-exempt status. So for liability and legal reasons, we need to make sure that project aligns with our mission [because] it essentially becomes a project of CMAC.”

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CMAC will only consider media-related projects, and its vetting process includes a review of budget and key personnel as well as an analysis of how likely the project is to succeed. CMAC’s board of directors must then approve the sponsorship before an agreement is signed. The biggest challenge can be those who are sponsored keeping track of expenses – “they need to understand what their responsibilities are” – so they can submit records to sponsors, Harley said.

One applicant who CMAC has agreed to sponsor is Byron Russell, a lecturer in the Media, Communications and Journalism Department at Fresno State. 

He wants to make a 20-30 minute documentary film, entitled “Why I Hate Raisins.” It would blend his history (Russell ate a lot of raisins as a child), his grandfather’s history (he was a field worker who became the first raisin inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and the broader story of the Valley’s complex relationship with the raisin industry. “A lot of people who come from families of farmworkers don’t know the honorable work that their family has done, and everyone in Fresno shares a bit of that history as well,” Russell says.

He wants to apply for a $50,000 grant to cover the costs of production and to purchase specialized equipment. Part of his film would be lighthearted with animated dancing raisins sick with mold having chest explosions. But it also would have a serious side with historical photos in the Ken Burns style.

(Full disclosure: The Munro Review is also under the fiscal sponsorship of CMAC and plans to apply for some form of Measure P funding.) 

No more starving artists?

Emerge Arts Projects also has experience as a fiscal sponsor, according to Executive Director tony sanders (he doesn’t use capitals). Emerge Arts currently sponsors two entities, and sanders is eager to do more through Measure P. “The notion of a starving artist, a struggling artist, is just so depressing. There’s no other way of putting it. I don’t like it, and if there’s something I can do to help make that go away, we will. Helping others is in our blood. It’s what Emerge Arts was designed to do.”

sanders said the administrative work of Emerge’s fiscal sponsorship rests with its volunteer treasurer, who oversees the financials, and himself. “I handle the hand holding, for lack of a better word – making sure those we sponsor are managing the funds correctly,” he said. sanders added: “We’re selective who we partner with. We make sure they have the administrative infrastructure in place so we don’t have to micromanage grants.”

Emerge’s board of directors has decided to sponsor two applicants:

• Chanticleer Shakespeare Co. which currently runs summer camps and would use a Measure P grant to mount productions for the public, including in high schools. (sanders said Chanticleer’s principals asked not to be identified.)

• Christine Rose of Hashtag Pamayanan, who proposes to hold Fresno’s first-ever Filipino cultural festival using Measure P funds.

With so many moving parts to deal with, González Chávez could feel like a harried worker on an assembly line. In the last year, she has fended off (with community help) an attempt by City Hall and then out-of-town consultants to hijack the grants process from the Fresno Arts Council, contrary to the language of Measure P. That took time away from working on issues like fiscal sponsorship, and even critics sound a sympathetic note for the Arts Council’s challenges. “It was like they went through a huge war,” said Lopez of Dulce Upfront. “My hat’s off to Lilia.” González Chávez then organized community meetings for public input on grant guidelines, which were written – and rewritten. Eventually, she helped shepherd the final proposed guidelines through the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, and then the City Council, which took many months. Finally, on Dec. 31, 2023, the application period opened.

Once all applications are in (the deadline is 11:59 p.m. on March 25), González Chávez expects a “good mix” of applicants. “I think there are enough people coming to the table.” Individual artists who didn’t – or couldn’t – apply for grants this year will have another opportunity in 2025 and beyond, when there could be more fiscal sponsors with greater administrative capacity thanks to Measure P organizational grants received  this year, she said. “This is the first time we’re doing this, and I’m just looking forward to it getting stronger each year.” 

Corrections: In earlier versions of this story, Nishea Trinidad’s name was misspelled. Also: Byron Russell’s grandfather was the first raisin inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the Food and Drug Administration; incorrect information was initially provided.

Doug Hoagland is a freelance writer in Fresno. He spent 40 years working at Valley papers, including 30 years at The Fresno Bee. The first play he saw was a 1968 production of “Show Boat” at McLane High School.