The New Jersey Cultural Trust Board approved a total of $1,040,935 in grants to 29 nonprofit arts organizations in 14 counties during an open public meeting held virtually on Jan. 15. With the Fiscal Year 2025 grant awards, the Cultural Trust has awarded over $11.4 million in funding for financial stabilization and historic preservation projects across New Jersey since Fiscal Year 2004.
The IFS Arts grants were recommended to the Cultural Trust by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The more than $1 million in awards represents the largest total dollar amount the Board has approved in grant awards in a single fiscal year in the Trust’s history.
“These grants are a historic investment in New Jersey’s cultural community that will resonate for years to come,” Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way said. “The Cultural Trust’s unique grant programs support projects that strengthen the foundations of our state’s cultural organizations — organizations that in turn anchor local economies, improve the health and vitality of our communities, and contribute immeasurably to New Jerseyans’ wellbeing and quality of life.”
The Cultural Trust’s IFS Arts program provides financial support to assist organizations in addressing the financial and institutional challenges that threaten their stability, and to help build greater operational capacity for organizations to manage and advance their work.
This includes offering funding for essential organizational infrastructure projects that other State agencies are not designed to support.
The Fiscal Year 2025 grant awards will support the creation of cash reserves and working capital funds; upgrades to critical technology including websites, computers, and financial management software; the purchase of important capital equipment such as theatrical lighting, musical instruments, and HVAC equipment; the creation of strategic planning documents that will set the course to improve organizational health; and more.
The $1,040,935 in grant awards also represents nearly twice the total amount awarded in the most recent IFS Arts grant round in 2023.
“It is exciting to see the Cultural Trust’s impact continue to grow,” Cultural Trust Board Chair Carol Cronheim said. “The Trust was founded 25 years ago this July to safeguard New Jersey’s arts, history, and humanities nonprofits, especially in uncertain economic times. The record 148 applications for stabilization funding in Fiscal Year 2025 demonstrate that the state’s nonprofit cultural sector continues to rely on the Trust for critical capitalization support. We are thrilled that this year we could respond to that demand with a record amount of funding.”
Unique among the other grant programs within the Department of State, Cultural Trust grants are made out of interest income generated by the Cultural Trust’s permanent investment fund, rather than from a direct annual budgetary appropriation.
High interest rates, increased appropriations to the principal of the Trust’s permanent fund, and diligent stewardship of the fund resulted in record high interest income for Fiscal Year 2024, which directly increased the Trust’s capacity to grant a historic amount in awards for the Fiscal Year 2025 IFS Arts program.
Applications to the Cultural Trust’s annual grant programs undergo an independent third-party peer review process consisting of qualified individuals employing uniform evaluation criteria. Awards are recommended to the Cultural Trust Board in alternating years by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, New Jersey Historical Commission, and the New Jersey Historic Trust.
