City of Olympia, WA

06/16/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/16/2025 12:50

06/16/2025 - New Round of Inspire Olympia Grants will Begin July 1

Olympia approves additional $1.3M for access to arts, culture and sciences

At their June 3 meeting, the Olympia City Council approved $1.3 million for Inspire Olympia's annual Impact Funding grant contracts. A total of 56 arts, cultural, heritage and science organizations arts will receive grants of up to $30,000 to support programs for the public and Olympia public schools in the annual funding cycle that begins July 1, 2025.

This time last year the Council approved one-year and two-year grants. Taken together, the continuing two-year Comprehensive grants plus the new one-year Impact Grants represent $2.5 million in cultural access dollars moving through seventy-six organizations in Olympia's nonprofit creative sector in the year ahead.

In addition to the grants, City Council also approved $375,000, or 12% of the annual Cultural Access income to serve Olympia public schools. This will fund field trips and hands-on learning activities, cover of the cost of related transportation and pay for a new coordinator position to support and expand Inspire Olympia programs for public school youth.

Through March of 2025, Inspire Olympia funding has helped to support field trips for over 5,000 students to attend Inspire Olympia-hosted field learning experiences for free, or at reduced rates. This includes students from every Olympia School District elementary and middle school.

Approved by voters in 2022 and authorized through 2029, Inspire Olympia is funded by a portion, one tenth of one percent, of Olympia's sales tax. The roughly $3 million collected each year is reserved in a Cultural Access Fund and re-invested into the community through Olympia's creative and cultural sector. The funding supports local nonprofits that are mission-focused on the advancement or preservation of the arts, culture, heritage or sciences, and that provide public programs in Olympia (or primarily for Olympia residents). It's a competitive funding process with recommendations made by a Cultural Access Advisory Board.

Inspire Olympia grant recipients represent an array of large and small organizations who celebrate minority groups, serve at-risk youth, engage senior citizens and open inclusive pathways for all to move the human spirit, provoke curiosity and spark imagination. They bring our community together in exploration and expression, making Olympia a friendlier, more livable and more lovable place.

Look forward to the Inspire Olympia-funded work of these organizations in the community, and in our schools:
ACE Strategies
Arbutus Folk School
Artists With Ecology
Ballet Northwest (Pictured above)
Capital City Chorus
Capital City Pride
Community Print
Creative Theatre Experience
Death Dancer
DECAY
Deschutes Estuary Restoration Team
Downtown Olympia Creative District
Earthbound Productions
Ecstatic Sound Collective
Emerald City Music
Free Music Olympia
Garden-Raised Urban Bounty (GRuB)
Haki Farmers Collective
Hands On Children's Museum
Harlequin Productions
Hispanic Roundtable of South Sound
Hummingbird Studio
Indigenous Performance Productions
Lacey MakerSpace
Latina K Presents
Master Gardener Foundation of Thurston County
Masterworks Choral Ensemble
Mi Chiantla
Moving Parts Dance
Nisqually Reach Nature Center
Olympia Arts and Heritage Alliance
Olympia Artspace Alliance
Olympia Beekeepers Association
Olympia Chamber Orchestra
Olympia Community Sailing
Olympia Family Theater
Olympia Film Collective
Olympia Film Society
Olympia Historical Society and Bigelow House Museum
Olympia Jazz Central
Olympia Junior Programs
Olympia Kato Sister City Association
Olympia Lamplighters
Olympia Music History Project
Olympia Musical Theatre
Olympia Symphony Orchestra
Olympia Youth Chorus
Pacific Education Institute
Pacific Northwest Theater
Pacific Shellfish Institute
Puget Sound Estuarium
Restoring Earth Connection
Samba Olywa
South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group
South Sound Dance Access
South Sound Green
South Sound Maritime Heritage Association
South Sound Studio Tour
String and Shadow Puppet Theater
Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia
Team-Tomorrow
Terra Forma Education
The 3rd Thing
The Bridge Music Project
The Felt Road
The Hawk Foundation for Research and Education in African Culture
The Olympia Peace Choir
Theater Artists Olympia
Thurston Community Media
Thurston County Museum of Fine Arts
Triceratops Technology Resources
Unforgettable Art Programs
Washington Center for the Performing Arts
Washington Stars Quilt Guild of Olympia
Window Seat Media
YWCA of Olympia
Learn More About Inspire Olympia
Contact
Marygrace L. Goddu, Cultural Access Program Manager
Community Planning & Economic Development
360.480.0923
mgoddu@ci.olympia.wa.us
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