A new survey released on August 4 by MASSCreative and five regional partner organizations offers a unique, regionally focused, quantitative snapshot of how recent federal funding cuts are affecting New England’s arts and culture sector. Conducted in February, the survey of 125 arts and cultural organizations sought to “assess the impacts that federal funding cuts have had on the region’s creative economy.”
The survey was conducted by MASSCreative, Arts4NH, CT Arts Alliance, the Cultural Alliance of Maine, the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), and the Vermont Creative Network. Rhode Island did not participate “for their own reasons,” MASSCreative wrote to BAR. The survey comes as cuts to and terminations from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) continue to reshape the region’s cultural landscape.
Respondents reported losing at least $13.5 million in federal, state, foundation, and individual funding in 2025. The survey found that 36 organizations lost 42 federal grants totaling more than $11.4 million. An additional $669,000 in foundation funding and $553,329 in individual donor funding were also lost, though respondents simultaneously reported an estimated “$6,175,860 net increase in foundation funding.” It is unclear whether those additional private grants were awarded in response to federal cuts.
The state-by-state findings were also uneven. Although Massachusetts has the largest creative economy in the region, organizations in the state reported losing $915,817. Connecticut organizations reported the highest losses at $5,270,006.
In a press release about the survey, MASSCreative notes that many of the affected organizations serve youth and student, aging, rural, low-income, immigrant, and BIPOC communities. “Throughout New England, 720 jobs that were fully or partially funded through federal and state funding have been impacted,” the press release says. Additionally, “30 organizations indicated they are decreasing their programs, exhibits, productions, or public services due to federal or state budget cuts.” The survey does not identify any of the participating organizations by name or specify which ones experienced the greatest losses.
“These cuts are intended to dismantle New England’s arts and cultural ecosystem. Residents and policymakers should take notice,” MASSCreative’s executive director, Emily Ruddock, notes in the press release.
The survey needs to be read with a few caveats.
Federal government grants to the arts are notoriously labor-intensive to apply for, report on, and qualify for. Because the barriers to entry are so high and the grant amounts are relatively small, neither federal nor state grants form the primary financial base for arts organizations. Therefore, the primary support US arts organizations receive from the government is their tax-exempt status and underwriting indemnity insurance. This means that while a loss of more than $11.4 million in government grants to organizations in five states seems like a large top-line number, it’s out of context relative to both the total amount of grants arts organizations receive and the rest of the ways arts organizations fund themselves. As a result, it’s only a partial view of the headwinds the sector faces today.
First, it is important to note that the survey does not account for grants that have been reinstated by the CPB, IMLS, NEA, and NEH. A number of lawsuits—against the NEH and the NEA, for example—resulted in court rulings that cuts initiated by DOGE were illegal and ordered the grants to be reinstated. Second, because the survey participants are not identified and the methodology is not explained, it’s not possible to tell how many respondents are nonprofits versus small or individual commercial entities, such as dance companies or individual artists.
This survey, therefore, is best understood as a narrow snapshot in time. Perhaps most useful is that it points to a systemic and pernicious problem plaguing the US arts and culture sector: The decentralized structure of the arts in the US makes it difficult to measure the downstream effects of grant cuts (from federal, state, and private philanthropy) and the impact of ideologically based policies on the goods and services produced in the cultural sector.
The survey was released as Congress gears up for budget season. Already, the fiscal year 2027 federal budget fights signal that the arts in the US will be under renewed threat. President Trump is proposing to slash the Smithsonian’s budget (read about this in more detail below) and, again, to “shutter the NEA, NEH, and IMLS for good.” Congress has until September 30 to approve the budget and, as it did last year, override Trump’s wishes by continuing to fund the agencies. In MASSCreative’s press release about the survey, Harold Steward, executive director of New England Foundation for the Arts and MASSCreative board member, says, “We urge Congress to maintain strong federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts and preserve the 40% allocation for the federal-state partnership in the FY27 budget.”
Arts Policy at the MA State House: An Update
On Beacon Hill, last week’s legislative work at the State Senate wrapped up with more of a whimper than a bang.
The “fun coalition” of State Senators Julian Cyr, Dylan Fernandes, Robyn Kennedy, Pavel Payano, Jo Comerford, Adam Gómez, and Paul Feeney was arguably the big winner. Of the nearly dozen amendments they filed to add to S.3718, otherwise known by the pithy and memorable name An Act relative to economic development in the Commonwealth, six were adopted. These include:
- Amendment 20: Cap the resale price of concert tickets
- Amendment 70: Expand support for agrotourism
- Amendment 78: Lift Massachusetts’s ban on happy hour via local option
- Amendment 309: Make permanent public drinking districts
- Amendment 354: Establish a micro-grant program for performers, artists, and promoters to spur entertainment and nightlife
- Amendment 595: Develop a plan to host a set of international soccer matches
State Senator Liz Miranda’s Amendment 29, which would have included language from the Creative Space Act, did not pass the vote and so was not added to the bill.
In an email, MASSCreative Director Emily Rudock wrote, “Amendment #29 would have included the Creative Space Act in the economic development bond bill, giving communities more tools to save and expand workspaces for artists and creatives. The legislation would give cities and towns the option to establish creative space trusts and implement a statewide definition for creative maker and presentation spaces. We applaud Senator Miranda for continuing to champion common sense solutions that cost the state nothing but fight against further displacement of artists and creative workers.”
As for next steps, the Conference Committee (made up of three House members and three Senate members) assigned to the bill has to reconcile the differences between the House version of the economic development bill, H.5562 (amended and engrossed by H.5567), An Act relative to economic development in the Commonwealth, and the Senate version, S.3718, effectively merging them into one bill before it can move to the floor for a vote.
Hope isn’t necessarily lost for the Creative Space Act. Just because it wasn’t added to the economic development act “does not mean the bill is dead,” said Ruddock in a phone interview on July 20. “This [S.3718] is a really helpful vehicle to drop policy change into. But the bill technically has until January 5 to be passed, so we will continue to work on it and advocate for it.”
For his part, Cyr is shifting into summer mode in P-town, weighing in on the effects of Ozempic on bear culture in a recent New York Times piece.
National & International Headlines
Congressional Arts Caucus Proposes Preserve Act to Protect Public Art in Federal Buildings Being Sold
Congresswoman Dina Titus and Congressman Lloyd Doggett introduced a bill to protect artworks in federal buildings, including those the Trump administration is seeking to sell or dispose of. If passed, the bill would require the General Services Administration (GSA) to convene a committee of experts and implement a plan to preserve publicly commissioned artworks during the disposal process. The pieces in question include art commissioned and created under New Deal programs.
“Publicly commissioned art should never become collateral damage when federal buildings are sold or otherwise disposed of,” said Titus in a press release. “It is critical that we establish a process to protect these national treasures and ensure the public has full access to the 26,000 works of art exhibited in museums and federal buildings around the country, no matter who sits in the Oval Office. Art commissioned by the federal government is a vital part of our national heritage and deserves to be preserved for future generations.”
The bill has been praised by arts activist Mallory Miller, cofounder of Hands off the Arts. How feasible it would be, even if the bill is passed, is unknown. The GSA lost nearly 40 percent of its staff due to DOGE cuts. If the committee is to be convened, questions will remain about who the experts would be and how they would be selected.
Attacks On the Smithsonian Rage On
News this week broke about the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to the Smithsonian Institution’s fiscal year 2027 budget. The cuts would lower Smithsonian’s budget to $961.3 million, a significant rollback from its $1.08 billion in 2026.
To understand what the future holds for the arts in the US, it will be important to keep an eye on the budget proposals for the NEA, the NEH, the IMLS, and the Smithsonian as we head toward Congress’s September 30 budget package deadline. Last year, for example, Trump requested minimal appropriations to fund the “orderly shutdown” of all three agencies. However, Congress overrode his request and funded them at the same level as under Biden, allowing them to continue.
The administration has since begun “staunching” grant funding from these agencies, thereby weaponizing budget disbursements through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Cutting off the agencies’ funding via the dispersals puts them in a politicized bind that appears designed to force them to navigate an impossible legal conflict between the president’s and Congress’s wishes. The agencies risk violating the Impoundment Control Act (if they don’t spend money Congress tells them to spend) or the Antideficiency Act (if they spend money that OMB tells them to spend).
Meanwhile, as Trump orders new signs to be posted near the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History to warn visitors about woke ideology, volunteers are rushing to document Smithsonian exhibits before they are changed.
The Artist Designing Trump’s Cultural Policy
For The New York Times, Zachary Small profiled conceptual artist and political strategist Mathew Taylor, who is emerging as a central figure in both Trump’s cultural policy and in Steve Bannon’s documentaries.
Could AI IPOs Solve the Arts Funding Crisis?
Drawing inspiration from Ireland and Belgium, KADIST International Director Joseph del Pesco sketches an idea for how the newly minted paper millionaires from AI IPOs might direct their newfound wealth toward philanthropy to support artists and struggling arts institutions.
New Tariffs Exempt Art and Antiquities
The US Trade Representative has announced that art, antiquities, and collectibles are exempt from Trump’s new tariffs. The new program is set to impose a 10–12.5 percent tax on goods imported from some eighty countries.
Local Headlines
Brown University President Christina Paxton Announces She’s Stepping Down
After making a deal with the Trump administration, leading the school through last year’s shooting, and presiding over the end of an era at the Bell Gallery, Paxton says it’s “the right decision for me and my family” to step down. Her tenure will conclude at the end of the 2026–2027 academic year.
Trump Overrode His Own Agencies to Deny Disaster Requests
POLITICO reports that Trump overrode his own agencies by denying disaster aid for four Democratic states—New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island—and sticking them with bills for snow removal. The cost of snow removal this year was cited as part of the City of Boston’s budget woes, which led to the contentious fiscal year 2027 cycle and, in part, played a role in the city cutting various department budgets, including the arts. The news comes as Trump’s Department of Energy admitted to canceling grants based “solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” As a result, the administration cut nearly $8 billion in clean energy projects in states that supported Kamala Harris, including Massachusetts.
Calls to Action
The Massachusetts Council of Nonprofits is urging constituents to contact their members of Congress and request that the OMB not require nonprofits to follow ideological requirements for grant compliance.
