Community Need

Since Provincetown is home to America’s oldest active art colony, it’s no wonder arts and culture are woven into the very fabric of Cape Cod. Artistic experiences help build strong communities, promote curiosity and creativity, enhance social bonds and connections, improve cognitive abilities, and offer other health benefits. They also help drive our economy.  Our community has pushed strongly to give local artists resources to create, learn, and share their work with others. Yet, with many competing demands for resources to address housing, hunger, education, and other issues, this essential piece of our community puzzle tends to get overlooked.

Prior to the pandemic, arts and cultural organizations accounted for 12% of the region’s nonprofit organizations. In early 2020, a report from the Massachusetts Cultural Council revealed that the Southeast Region of Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, realized $141 million in cultural revenue losses, the second highest in Massachusetts after Greater Boston. During the pandemic, local art and cultural organizations had limited ability to welcome visitors to their spaces and performances. And, when they were able to open, heavy restrictions and capacity limits inhibited revenue, increased expenses, and impacted operational sustainability. Individual artists were similarly affected by their inability to showcase their work.

Yet, despite the challenges, many cultural organizations found a silver lining. Shifting to remote programming helped them reach existing and new audiences around the world.

Foundation Strategy

While we’re building discretionary resources to support The Cape Cod Foundation Fund for the Arts, we’re also leveraging resources from other discretionary funds to increase the impact of our grantmaking. One of those funds has a memorable history. In 2020, we received a bequest totaling nearly $6.4 million from an anonymous donor. To date, this is the single largest bequest the Foundation has received. As per the donor’s wishes, we allocated a portion of the gift to endowment funds to support the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Cape Cod Center for the Arts. The remaining portion will support visual arts and other aspects of community life on Cape Cod.

You’ll note that, over the past five years, Foundation Funds have invested more than $1.77 million in arts and cultural programs and nonprofit capacity building initiatives to strengthen arts organizations. That’s the power of leveraging resources. However, resources aren’t the only commodity we leverage. Knowledge is powerful. Our ongoing partnership with the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod (AFCC) has made us more strategic grant makers–-individually and collectively. As a leader in the creative community, they know where the needs are and where the resources will have the most impact. This is why we have awarded AFCC a total of $87,000 from 2021-2024 to support the Creative Exchange. This capacity-building, educational program provides financial, business, and creative sustainability to established and emerging artists on Cape Cod.

Recent Grantmaking

• Supported an outreach and inclusion program which provides free, accessible, and inclusive art making, performance opportunities and health/wellness education to hundreds of local children, teens, and adults with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities.
• Supported a collaboration between two local nonprofits to present a series of workshops focused on live performances and education to engage and empower those impacted by Alzheimer’s disease.
• Provided capacity-building grants to two local arts organizations. Funding for one organization supported staff expansion and software to streamline development and patron and donor management. The other provided general operating support, and funding for a comprehensive organizational needs assessment, and the implementation and administration of one or more activities arising from the needs assessment.

UNRESTRICTED
FUND

ANIMAL PROTECTION & WELFARE FUND

ARTS & CULTURE FUND

EDUCATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS FUND

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES FUND

HOUSING FUND

WOMEN AND GIRLS FUND

WORKFORCE
& CAREER DEVELOPMENT FUND

TO MAKE A MULTI-YEAR PROMISE
Kristin O’Malley
President and CEO
The Cape Cod Foundation
komalley@capecodfoundation.org
508.790.3040, Ext. 115