{"id":70569,"date":"2024-09-02T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/life\/doors-open-brings-millions-of-dollars-to-arts-and-cultural-organizations-throughout-king-county\/"},"modified":"2024-09-03T10:12:26","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T17:12:26","slug":"doors-open-brings-millions-of-dollars-to-arts-and-cultural-organizations-throughout-king-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/life\/doors-open-brings-millions-of-dollars-to-arts-and-cultural-organizations-throughout-king-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Doors Open brings millions of dollars to arts and cultural organizations throughout King County"},"content":{"rendered":"
Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the arts and cultural sector of King County — public art, historical preservation, heritage and arts — had become underfunded and, in many ways, put on hold.<\/p>\n
Over the next two years, this will immensely change, as recent legislation will allow for millions of dollars to go towards non-profit organizations that are dedicated not only to arts, heritage and history, but also technology, botony, zoology and science.<\/p>\n
In December 2023, King County passed legislation for Doors Open, a program which will increase funding of an estimated $90 million per year to non-profit organizations that focus on arts, heritage, science and historic preservations through a 0.1% sales tax.<\/p>\n
Headed by 4Culture, the cultural funding agency of King County here in Washington, funding for the county’s arts, preservation, heritage and public art have often been for individuals, but Doors Open is different in that it is money that only goes to eligible King County-based non-profit organizations.<\/p>\n
Eligible organizations include those whose “primary purpose is the advancement and preservation of science or technology, the visual or performing arts, including zoology, botany, anthropology, heritage, or natural history.”<\/p>\n
With the first leg of the program kicking off in the last half of 2024 — applications opened in August with a quick closure on Sept. 4 — the initial turnaround was tight but necessary, due to the funding needing to get out by the beginning of 2025.<\/p>\n
“It takes some time to build programs and to roll them out,” said Christina DePaolo of 4Culture, the cultural funding agency of King County here in Washington. “It takes time to plan them and to implement them. Knowing that the programs would happening in 2025, we wanted to get the money out this year.”<\/p>\n
Initial Programs through Doors Open<\/strong><\/p>\n For this first leg, the two opening programs for Doors Open are Sustained Support and Doors Open Facilities.<\/p>\n Sustained Support, in short, “keeps the lights on” for organizations for a year, allowing “unrestricted funding to meet the day-to-day needs” of eligible organizations. In fall 2025, this program will begin a two-year cycle for 2026-2027.<\/p>\n