City of Portland, OR
10/23/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 10/23/2025 17:08
Arts & Culture to award $2.8M+ in General Operating Support grants to local arts organizations in 2025-26
News Article
View full size image of Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater performance
The Office of Arts & Culture's General Operating Support program provides essential resources to local arts organizations.
Published
October 23, 2025 3:30 pm
Arts organizations and their work are vitally important to Portland's past and present-and critical to its future. In Portland, the arts play an outsized role in revitalizing downtown; creating an active, vibrant, and welcoming central core; and building community connectedness across town. Today, the City of Portland's Office of Arts & Culture is excited to announce its intention to award $2,805,000 in General Operating Support funding to 79 local arts organizations in Portland for fiscal year 2025-26.
"Portland-based arts organizations are an asset to our community. I'm inspired by their work: from murals and activations throughout downtown, to the performances hosted at Portland'5 venues. They also buoy our larger efforts to renew and invigorate the central city and beyond," said Portland Mayor Keith Wilson. "The City is one of the region's largest arts funders, and the return on that investment ripples through every corner of Portland."
The impact of the City's General Operating Support program is immense-both for the organizations themselves and for Portlanders, Oregonians, and global consumers of great art. In 2023-24, the most recent fiscal year with fully analyzed data, Portland's General Operating Support grantee organizations supported a 2,392-person workforce and served:
- 1,068,567 Portlanders
- 202,196 K-12 students in Portland
- 262,312 low-income Oregonians (including through free events and $5 for All tickets)
"General Operating Support provides stable, flexible funding to Portland's arts organizations-and that's really important," Arts & Culture Director Chariti Montez. "It's not attached to any specific project, and groups can use the funds for whatever suits them best, from program delivery to staff salaries or rent. Access to this kind of unrestricted money is especially important during times of scarcity and uncertainty."
City of Portland's 2025-26 General Operating Support grantee roster
| Espresso Shots | Water |
| Alberta Abbey Foundation | $30,000 |
| All Ages Music Portland / Friends of Noise | $30,000 |
| Artists Repertory Theatre | $45,000 |
| Arts for Learning Northwest | $15,000 |
| Blue Sky / Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts | $15,000 |
| Bodyvox | $45,000 |
| Boom Arts | $15,000 |
| Caldera | $60,000 |
| Cappella Romana | $30,000 |
| Chamber Music Northwest | $60,000 |
| Children's Healing Art Project | $15,000 |
| Coho Productions | $20,000 |
| Corrib Theatre | $15,000 |
| Cymaspace | $15,000 |
| Echo Theater Company | $45,000 |
| En Taiko | $15,000 |
| Ethos Music Center | $30,000 |
| Friends of Chamber Music | $45,000 |
| Hand2Mouth | $20,000 |
| Hollywood Theatre / Film Action Oregon | $85,000 |
| Imago Theatre | $20,000 |
| Independent Publishing Resource Center | $15,000 |
| Instituto de Cultura y Arte In Xochitl In Cuicatl | $15,000 |
| Lan Su Chinese Garden | $30,000 |
| Literary Arts | $85,000 |
| Live Wire Radio | $30,000 |
| MediaRites | $15,000 |
| Metropolitan Youth Symphony | $45,000 |
| Milagro Theatre Group | $30,000 |
| My Voice Music | $30,000 |
| New Expressive Works | $15,000 |
| North Pole Studio | $30,000 |
| Northwest Children's Theater & School | $60,000 |
| Northwest Dance Project | $45,000 |
| NW Documentary Arts & Media | $15,000 |
| OK You | $15,000 |
| Open Hearts Open Minds | $15,000 |
| Oregon Ballet Theatre | $100,000 |
| Oregon BRAVO Youth Orchestras | $45,000 |
| Oregon Children's Theatre | $45,000 |
| Oregon Contemporary | $30,000 |
| Oregon Symphony Association | $175,000 |
| Outside the Frame | $30,000 |
| Pacific Youth Choir | $15,000 |
| PassinArt: A Theatre Company | $20,000 |
| PHAME | $30,000 |
| PlayWrite | $15,000 |
| Polaris Dance Theatre | $15,000 |
| Portland Art Museum | $175,000 |
| The Portland Ballet | $30,000 |
| Portland Baroque Orchestra | $45,000 |
| Portland Center Stage | $100,000 |
| Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble | $20,000 |
| Portland Gay Men's Chorus | $30,000 |
| Portland Institute for Contemporary Art | $45,000 |
| Portland Jazz Festival | $45,000 |
| Portland Opera | $85,000 |
| Portland Piano International | $20,000 |
| Portland Playhouse | $60,000 |
| Portland Street Art Alliance | $30,000 |
| Portland Taiko | $15,000 |
| Portland Youth Philharmonic | $45,000 |
| Profile Theatre | $30,000 |
| The Red Door Project | $30,000 |
| Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater | $15,000 |
| Resonance Ensemble | $15,000 |
| Shaking the Tree Theatre | $20,000 |
| Street Books | $15,000 |
| Takohachi | $15,000 |
| Theatre Diaspora | $15,000 |
| Third Angle New Music | $15,000 |
| Third Rail Repertory Theatre | $30,000 |
| Triangle Productions | $20,000 |
| Vanport Mosaic | $15,000 |
| White Bird | $45,000 |
| Willamette Light Brigade/Portland Winter Light Festival | $45,000 |
| World Arts Foundation | $15,000 |
| World Stage Theatre | $20,000 |
| Write Around Portland | $20,000 |
Eligibility and funding tiers
To be considered for General Operating Support, arts organizations must be headquartered in Portland and provide services in Portland, along with other eligibility criteria.
"Base award" amounts are determined by grouping organizations into tiers based on their three-year average eligible incomes. The tiers are progressive, which means that small organizations receive a larger percentage of their overall budget than the larger organizations.
Before assessing 2025-26 award amounts, Arts & Culture recalculated each organization's three-year average of eligible income. As a result, 56 arts organizations remained in the same tier they'd been in for fiscal year 2024-25, while 20 groups moved into a higher tier and two groups moved to a lower tier. One organization was determined to be ineligible for funding in 2025-26.
| Tier | Eligible income (3 year-average) | Base award | as % of income |
| Pink | $75,000-$300,000 | $15,000 | 5%-20% |
| Purple | $300,000-$500,000 | $20,000 | 4%-7% |
| Red | $500,000-$1,000,000 | $30,000 | 3%-6% |
| Orange | $1,000,000-$2,000,000 | $45,000 | 2%-5% |
| Yellow | $2,000,000-$4,000,000 | $60,000 | 2%-3% |
| Green | $4,000,000-$7,000,000 | $85,000 | 1%-2% |
| Blue | $7,000,000-$10,000,000 | $100,000 | 1%-1.4% |
| Navy | $10,000,000-$15,000,000 | $125,000 | 0.8%-1.3% |
| Grey | $15,000,000-$25,000,000 | $175,000 | 0.7%-1.2% |
Available General Operating Support funding for 2025-26 compared to 2024-25
In 2024-25, the City awarded $4,098,538 in General Operating Support. The majority of General Operating Support funds come from the Arts Access Fund, which is funded through the City's annual Arts Tax. Arts Tax collections have been flat in recent years, while the cost of collecting the tax and the delivery of arts education services at Portland schools have both increased. Collection costs and allocations to Portland's six school districts are disbursed from the Arts Access Fund before any remaining funds feed into Arts & Culture's grantmaking programs. In addition to City-wide budget cuts impacting every bureau and office, these trends have resulted in a smaller pot of funding available for the distribution of General Operating Support grants in 2025-26.
In 2024-25, General Operating Support awards included up to four components: (1) base awards, (2) investment awards, (3) subsidies for resident and featured companies of Portland'5 Centers for the Arts, and (4) other special allocations. Due to the current economic challenges, Arts & Culture is only funding base awards, calculated using the tiered structure outlined above, as part of its 2025-26 General Operating Support program.
Changes to the process 2026-27
The Office of Arts & Culture and the City's Grants Management Division are working to redesign the General Operating Support process, including a requirement for all current grantees and interested parties to reapply for the program next year. Organizations that are not currently receiving General Operating Support funding from the City of Portland but would like to be notified when 2026-27 guidelines are shared and/or when next year's application opens-in spring 2026-are invited to fill out this form.
More about General Operating Support
What is General Operating Support?
In 2025-26, General Operating Support will provide direct, flexible funding to 79 nonprofit arts and culture organizations in Portland. Organizations will use these funds to deliver their mission and provide a wide range of arts programming, from indie radio stations and dance classes to theatrical performances and free concerts, for residents and visitors.
How is the General Operating Support program funded?
General Operating Support grants are funded through the City of Portland's General Fund and the Arts Access Fund, which is powered by the Arts Tax-a $35 income tax paid annually by all eligible Portlanders.
What other grantmaking programs does Arts & Culture fund?
In addition to General Operating Support, our Small Grants Program provides funding for hundreds of individual working artists every year. In 2024-25, the Small Grant Program awarded $1.36 million to 230 individual artists and 90 arts organizations via its program partners at Friends of IFCC, MusicOregon, and RACC.
In 2025-26, the Small Grant Program will award individual artists and local arts organizations with $1.4 million from the City of Portland. The application periods for all three partner programs are closed. At present, the hard work of evaluating applications and selecting grantees is underway, and funding announcements from our partners are expected this fall and winter.
City of Portland, OR published this content on October 23, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on October 23, 2025 at 23:09 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]