What is the Arts Access Fund?
Funded by an annual income tax of $35 per adult in Portland (known as the Arts Tax), the Arts Access Fund supports arts and music education in K-5 schools and grantmaking to support local nonprofit arts organizations. On the grantmaking side, the Arts Access Fund fuels the City's General Operating Support and its Small Grants for Artists & Arts Organizations programs.
Portland Schools (K-5)
School year 2024-25
The City of Portland’s Arts Access Fund ensures that students in Portland—more than 28,000 of them—have access to the arts as part of their K-5 education. This collective fund, powered by the Arts Tax, is broad, efficient, and unique to Portland, impacting every public elementary school student in the city. Arts Access Fund dollars are distributed based on the number of students in each district and are used specifically to hire art and music teachers for kindergarten through fifth grade students at the six districts in the city:
- Portland Public Schools
- David Douglas School District
- Centennial School District 28J
- Parkrose School District
- Reynolds School District
- and charter schools
Schools receive enough funding to pay for one arts teacher, music or visual arts, per 500 elementary school students. The Office of Arts & Culture also allocates up to 3% of net revenues to help coordinate arts education services and outcomes across Portland's six school districts.
For the 2024-25 school year, schools in Portland received $7.8 million from the Arts Access Fund to pay elementary arts educators' salaries.
General Operating Support
Fiscal year 2024-25
Since 2012, the Arts Access Fund has provided more than $30 million to local arts organizations via the Office of Arts & Culture's General Operating Support program. Grants are awarded to organizations to support their general operating expenses and to help expand access to the arts for all Portlanders—with an emphasis on serving K-12 students and underserved communities.
The list below outlines all of the organizations that were awarded General Operating Support, powered by the Arts Access Fund, for fiscal year 2024-25. In all, a total of $4,098,538 in funding will go to 80 local organizations. Of that, $3,287,000 was from the Arts Access Fund and $811,538 was from the City's General Fund. All General Operating Support is direct and unrestricted.
Small Grants for Artists & Arts Organizations
Fiscal year 2024-25
By City Code, at least 5% of Arts Access Fund proceeds are to be invested in "grants and programs to nonprofit arts organizations, other nonprofits, and schools that will give access to high-quality arts experiences to Kindergarten through 12th grade students (K-12) and for grants and programs that will make arts and culture experiences available to Portland residents, with a particular emphasis on programs directed to communities who are underserved by local arts providers."
This list of 73 organizations received a total of $350,000 in Small Grants for Artists & Arts Organizations from the City of Portland's Office of Arts & Culture, disbursed by one of the office's three grant partners, Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
| Grantee | Project | FY2024-25 total |
|---|---|---|
| 21ten Theatre | 21ten Summer Residency Program for Emerging Artists & New Works (theatre) | $5,000 |
| A Notion, A Scream | A Notion, A Scream concert on May 31, 2025 (music) | $3,000 |
| Advance Gender Equality in the Arts | ALP in Action (theatre) | $5,000 |
| after / time collective gallery | Exhibition Programming + Creative Research Lab (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Albina Music Trust | Sounds of Albina Remixed vinyl album and release party (music) | $5,000 |
| Alder Commons | Traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous crafts (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Baksana Ensemble | Baksana Ensemble album recording and free album release party (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Bedrock Theatre | Record and launch Bedrock Theatre's first album (theatre) | $3,000 |
| Carnation Contemporary | Carnation Contemporary: Portland Artist-Run Gallery (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Columbia Slough Watershed Council | I Belong Here 2024-25 (media arts) | $5,000 |
| congruency dance collective | congruency dance collective presents: fractals (dance/movement) | $5,000 |
| Couch Film Collective | Catalyst Film Collective Scrip to Screen short film (film/video) | $5,000 |
| Creative Music Guild | Improvisation Summit of Portland 2025 (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Dana Thompson Memorial Fund of Awesome | Schools Out Rock Out after school program (music) | $5,000 |
| Espacio Flamenco | Feria de Portland (multi-discipline) | $4,000 |
| Fear No Music | Together We Rise: Fear No Music (music) | $5,000 |
| First Matter Press | Four new books from First Matter Press (literature) | $3,000 |
| Futel | The Old Town Crier (media arts) | $5,000 |
| Gather:Make:Shelter | Gather:Make:Shelter Mullowney Print Exhibitions (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Hoi Phy Huynh | Year of the Horse Tết Festival (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Immutable Studio | Immutable Studio Artist-Resident Stipends (media arts) | $5,000 |
| In Medio | Sing, My Child 2025 (music) | $5,000 |
| India Cultural Association | India Festival 2025 (folk arts/cultural arts) | $5,000 |
| Japanese Ancestral Society - Ikoi no Kai | Home Cooked 2, an intergenerational and collaborative zine cookbook (multi-discipline) | $4,000 |
| LineStorm Playwrights | Fertile Ground New Play Reading Series (theatre) | $5,000 |
| Lion Speaks | Bride Price community screening and discussion (film/video) | $5,000 |
| Lloyd EcoDistrict | Art + Heart: Lloyd Mural & Street Fair (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Many Hats Collaboration | The Hatchery 2025 (theatre) | $5,000 |
| Medicine Bear Native American Spiritual Encampment | RedStone Collective arts and culture workshop series (folk arts/cultural arts) | $5,000 |
| New Wave Opera | Historical Women in Opera (music) | $5,000 |
| nůn studios llc | nůn studios exhibition (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| NW Dance & Culture Collective, LLC | JamBallah NW 2025 (dance/movement) | $5,000 |
| Oregon Arts Watch | Play-by-Play with Bobby and Susannah (media arts) | $5,000 |
| Oregon Karen Association | Karen New Year Celebration (folk arts/cultural arts) | $5,000 |
| Oregon Origins Project | Oregon Origins Project VI: The Birth of Cascadia (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Oregon Potters Association | Oaxaca Intercultural Exchange (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Oregon Repertory Singers | Bringing accessible music education to Portland's youth | ChoirFestNW (music) | $5,000 |
| Oregon Society of Artists | Veteran's Art Program (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Outer Voice | Outer Voice 2024/25 season (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Past Lives | Past Lives Prison Outreach Guild (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| People's Town Hall | The Experiment (film/video) | $5,000 |
| Performance Works NorthWest | Alembic Artist Residency Program 2025 (dance/movement) | $5,000 |
| Portland Child Art Studio | Free arts education program at the Vibrant (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Portland Community Media dba Open Signal | Portland Music Industry Showcase (film/video) | $5,000 |
| Portland in Color | HERE: A Passage to Home (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Portland Japanese Garden | Lost Freedom: A Memory with George Takei at Portland Japanese Garden (music) | $5,000 |
| Portland Jazz Composers | PJCE & Mary Flower: Bridging Jazz and American Roots Music (music) | $4,000 |
| Portland Lesbian Choir | 2025 concerts (music) | $5,000 |
| Portland Panorama | Northwest Filmmakers' Conference (film/video) | $5,000 |
| Portland Revels | Spring Revels 2025 (theatre) | $4,000 |
| Portland SummerFest | Opera in the Park Portland 2025 (music) | $5,000 |
| Portland Symphonic Choir | Summer Sings 2025 (music) | $4,000 |
| Portland Zine Symposium | Portland Zine Symposium (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Radix Vocal Ensemble | One Sweet Chord 2025 Community Sings (music) | $4,000 |
| Rehab's Sisters | Voices of Fashion: A Community Art Event (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Renegade Opera | Bird Songs of Opera 2025 (music) | $4,000 |
| Risk/Reward | Festival of New Performance (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Roots and All Theatre Ensemble | "Every Pretty Thing" (theatre) | $5,000 |
| Shaver Elementary Community Organization | Shaver Elementary community mural (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Souvenir | 2025 artist stipends and programming support (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Stage Fright | Stage Fright Festival fall 2025 (theatre) | $5,000 |
| Steps for Youth | Bloom Spring Student Performance (dance/movement) | $5,000 |
| Street Roots | Ink & Impact: Stories of Street Newspaper Vendors and Cover Art from Around the World (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Swan Songs Portland OR | Swan Songs Portland OR End-of-Life Concerts 2025 (music) | $5,000 |
| The City Repair Project | Village Building Convergence 2025 (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| The Mud Room | Increasing ceramics access for people with disabilities (visual arts) | $4,000 |
| Third Space | Third Space: A Community Place (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| Thompson Elk Fountain Comic Project | Weird Like Us: A History of the Thompson Elk Fountain (literature) | $4,000 |
| Vibe of Portland | New instructional site in NE Portland in partnership with Alberta Abbey (multi-discipline) | $5,000 |
| VOICES, a BIPOC Adoptee Community aka BIPOC Adoptees VOICES | Voices, a Celebration of BIPOC Adoptee Authors | $5,000 |
| Waterstone Gallery | Unique art programming to enhance visibility and attract new audiences (visual arts) | $5,000 |
| Women in Film - Portland | Educate and Incubate Program (film/video) | $5,000 |
| Word is Bond | The King in Me Exhibition (visual arts) | $5,000 |