N.J. Arts and Cultural Renewal Fund awards nearly $600,000 in grants (see the list)

The New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund has awarded nearly $600,000 in grants to nonprofits that will use the funds to help artists, teaching artists and history professionals recover from the financial devastation of the pandemic.

The grants, the third round of funding awarded by NJACRF, brings the grant total to more than $4.5 million in support to 172 nonprofits in the arts and culture sector. The fund, founded in 2020 as a way to help the arts during the pandemic, is hosted by the Princeton Area Community Foundation.

Jeremy Grunin, co-chair of the NJACRF and president of the Grunin Foundation, said the grants correspond to a name for the organization – which now views itself as a vehicle for renewal.

“Recovery to renewal signifies a shift from crisis support to an opportunity to change the actual system itself,” he said. “We always knew that smaller nonprofits most vulnerable to disruptions and those historically underfunded prior to the pandemic were going to need longer-term support.

“The New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund will create an additional resource of fast and flexible funding that wasn’t previously available – helping to build a much stronger arts, cultural, and historical ecosystem in New Jersey.”

The grants announced today total $592,501 and will be awarded to nonprofits that will act as intermediaries, re-granting the funds to artists, teaching artists, and history professionals.

Phase III grants were awarded to:

Atlantic County

· Atlantic City Arts Foundation, Atlantic City

· South Jersey Cultural Alliance, Hammonton

Camden County

· Superior Arts Institute, Camden

Essex County

· Newark Arts, Newark

· Project for Empty Space, Newark

Hudson County

· Riverview Jazz, Jersey City

Mercer County

· Young Audiences New Jersey & Eastern Pennsylvania, Princeton

Middlesex County

· Dance New Jersey, Sewaren section of Woodbridge

Monmouth County

· Jazz Arts Project, Inc., Red Bank

· Monmouth Arts, Red Bank

· New Jersey Theatre Alliance, Allenhurst

Morris County

· Art in the Atrium, Morristown

Somerset County

· League of Historical Societies of NJ, Bridgewater

Sussex County

· Peters Valley School of Craft, Layton