The Office of Arts & Culture provides unrestricted grants to established nonprofit arts organizations in Portland that demonstrate artistic excellence, provide service to the community, show administrative and fiscal competence, and provide a wide range of high-quality arts programs for the public.
From 1995 to 2024, the City contracted with the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) to administer General Operating Support grants and distribute funds. In 2019, RACC revamped its General Operating Support program to direct a higher proportion of funding to small and midsized organizations, establishing funding tiers based on budget size. (Visit racc.org for more background.)
In 2024, the City’s Office of Arts & Culture announced that it would provide General Operating Support directly to the same arts organizations that RACC funded in FY2023-24, including the same Base Award based on the same tiers. The City also announced that going forward, grant awards would be more closely tied to the goals of the Arts Access Fund, the primary revenue source for these grants. Specifically, funding will be allocated to organizations that provide services to K-12 students and people in under-represented communities.
Currently, the General Operating Support cohort includes 73 organizations that received General Operating Support from RACC last year, and seven organizations that received Capacity Building grants from RACC last year. Due to funding constraints, the City is not accepting new applications for General Operating Support in Fiscal Year 2024-25, but organizations can declare interest in applying for General Operating Support in the future by filling out a GOS intake form.
General Operating Support FY2023-24 and FY2024-25 grantees
In FY2023-24, organizations received their grant award from the Regional Arts & Culture Council. In FY2024-25, organizations are receiving their grant award from the Office of Arts & Culture.
General Operating Support: Cultural Equity grantees
In FY2023-24, several organizations received "Capacity Building" support from the Regional Arts & Culture Council. In FY2024-25, these seven organizations are receiving General Operating Support as a "Cultural Equity" grantee because they provide culturally specific programming and other services for current and historically underrepresented and underserved populations:
| Organization | Website |
| Cymaspace | https://www.cymaspace.org/ |
| En Taiko | https://entaiko.org/ |
| Instituto de Cultura y Arte In Xochitl In Cuicatl | https://www.ixic.org/ |
| MediaRites | https://mediarites.org/ |
| Takohachi | https://www.takohachi.org/ |
| Theatre Diaspora | https://theatrediaspora.org/ |
| World Arts Foundation | https://www.worldartsfoundation.org/ |