The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona Awards Upwards of $850,000 in ARPA Grants to 84 Artists and Arts Organizations Across Southern Arizona
TUCSON, AZ — The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona proudly announces the recipients of the 2025 ARPA Artist and Organization Grant Programs. A total of $851,728 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds has been awarded to support 43 individual artists and 41 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organizations across Southern Arizona.
Funded through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Tucson, these grants are part of a continued effort to fuel the nation’s recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The combined impact of these two grant programs reflects the Arts Foundation’s ongoing commitment to regional representation in the distribution of public funding for the arts. The 2025 ARPA Artist and 2025 ARPA Organization grants bring total ARPA grant funding distributed between December 2023 and April 2025 to $1,392,062. The funding was awarded to 143 grantees in 16 cities across Southern Arizona.
2025 ARPA Artists Grant
The 2025 ARPA Artist Grant supported individual artists and culture bearers living and working across Southern Arizona. Awarded artists received funding in exchange for providing creative services to a designated client, such as a community group, school, nonprofit, or civic partner. The program was designed to respond directly to community needs and to uplift underrepresented voices across 13 artistic disciplines. This year, 70% of the award recipients were first-time grantees of the Arts Foundation. This direct investment in individual artists impacted nine public sectors across six cities and towns in Southern Arizona.
The Artist Grant exclusively paid 43 artists for their labor, with the added benefit of supporting creative services for 43 clients selected by each grantee. Clients and grantees collaborated at the intersection of arts and tourism, public education, public health, housing and community development, cultural heritage, economic development, government, community advocacy, and local nonprofit organizations. A cornerstone of this initiative was its focus on workforce investment– each artist profile is featured as a vetted service provider in the Arts Foundation Arts and Culture Directory, reinforcing the role of artists as essential workers in civic and cultural life.
“The 2025 ARPA Artists Grant is a bold investment in Southern Arizona’s creative future. It uplifts Artists and Culture Bearers as essential storytellers, mentors, and changemakers,” said Adriana Gallego, CEO of the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. “By honoring cultural traditions and sparking new connections, this program fuels community resilience, fosters civic engagement, and celebrates the power of art to bring people together.”
“Congratulations to this year’s artists and cultural organizations who make Tucson and Southern Arizona a place where the arts and culture are thriving,” said Tucson Mayor Regina Romero. “This partnership is a great example of how government and the arts are helping connect artists, poets, musicians, filmmakers, culture bearers, and creative people of all kinds to opportunity. Thank you to the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona for inviting us to collaborate with you to uplift the power of the arts.”
“The City of Tucson is proud to partner with the Arts Foundation to ensure that federal recovery dollars reach the creative workers and cultural organizations that are vital to our region’s identity and resilience,” said Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure. “These ARPA grants not only strengthen our economy—they help anchor community pride, health, and belonging in neighborhoods across Southern Arizona.”
2025 ARPA Artist Grant At-A-Glance
- 43 Artist Grantees
- $377,500 funding distributed
- 6 Southern Arizona cities and towns
- 70% are first-time grantees
- 389 families served
- 2,190 adults and children engaged in arts programming
- 82 healthcare and frontline workers served
- 123 families of active service members engaged
- 28 small businesses, 43 clients, and 9 public sectors served
From our Grantees…
These ARPA rescue funds didn’t just support our work — they helped us show up for South Tucson the way it deserves. Through Elevate & Ignite, we partnered with five legacy businesses that have been holding it down for generations. With new branding, websites, and tools to tell their stories, these businesses are now more visible, more confident, and more rooted than ever. This wasn’t just a program–it was the beginning of something bigger: business-rooted development led by the people who’ve always been here. South Tucson has always had the heart. This gave us a way to help it shine. – Nicolette Gomez, South Tucson, Pascua Yaqui.
These funds allowed me to develop and execute a pilot songwriting program with an underserved population in our community. I was able to connect with a local long-term medical care residence home to write individual songs with and for each participant in the program. Using their favorite music as a guide, I prompted program participants to write a song with the subject and style of their choosing, and the results were beautiful. The music we co-wrote was diverse, fun, and emotionally moving. We wrote an entire album of new music and made wonderful connections and memories along the way. – Eli Beren, Tucson, AZ.
Receiving emergency funding to allow for community gathering, at a time in which the rural community of Bisbee needs connection more than ever, has been transformative. As an artist and community organizer, I am accustomed to giving my efforts without asking for anything in return. With the support of this grant, I have been able to give more than I ever have to this community, to support underrepresented voices and allow their stories to be uplifted and promote a sustainable model for ongoing creative collaboration and connection in Bisbee. Thank you for making this possible. – Alli Stewart, Bisbee, AZ.
2025 ARPA Organization Grant
The ARPA Organization Grant supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts and culture organizations, strengthening their ability to recover, adapt, and thrive post-pandemic. From rural arts spaces to established cultural anchors, these organizations form the bedrock of Southern Arizona’s creative ecosystem. The program sought to strengthen the arts economies in the borderlands and foster civic participation. Grantee organizations prioritized the restoration or creation of jobs by hiring artists and artworkers at any stage in their careers to deliver quality arts programming and provide services to communities across Southern Arizona.
“Through this significant investment, the Arts Foundation remains committed to the cultural vibrancy of the region,” said Gabriela Muñoz, Director of Grants and Programs. “The 356 artists and creatives hired by the 41 organizational grantees highlight how essential this funding is to the sector’s financial health and underscore its powerful impact on our community.”
2025 ARPA Organization Grant At-A-Glance
- 41 Cultural Organizations Funded
- $505,000 funding distributed
- 8 Southern Arizona cities and towns
- 356 artists and artworkers hired
- 33,737 families served
- 357,657 adults and children engaged in arts programming
- 1,267 healthcare workers and 165 frontline workers served
- 2,420 families of active service members and 1,718 veterans engaged
From our Grantees…
“Funds were used for artists’ fees. GVAC [Gila Valley Arts Council] is the only organization bringing performing arts to the Gila Valley. 95% of the work we do is dedicated to education. Through the Carion Wind Quintet, we served 602 students through a bus-in performance (12 schools), which raised the level of appreciation of the performing arts, encouraged audience behavior skills, and taught students about wind instruments/capabilities. Carion offered a workshop that complemented classroom objectives for 42 high school music students. And they critiqued the performance of 27 post-high school students through a master class at EAC. Adult performances reached 102 residents. Total impact: 773. – Gila Valley Arts Council (GVAC), Green Valley, AZ
The funds provided allowed us to pay the artist-administrators who are responsible for primary program operations. In turn, those staff were able to perform in the annual All Souls Procession, provide a team-building workshop for youth with diabetes, and teach taiko to students aged 10 to 80, among other activities. These funds also supported key administrative work, including managing our studio for the multiple arts groups that rent our space and an ongoing transition from the co-founding director to a new generation of leaders, ensuring long-term sustainability for the organization and our local community of renting artists. – Odaiko Sonora Rhythm Industry, Tucson, AZ.
One hundred percent of the funds were used towards the honorariums of 15 artists who engaged close to 3,000 people, one-third of whom were students. We engaged a cross-cultural audience with our bilingual “Alebrijes,” a celebration of Mexican American traditions. We connected with audiences — no matter their language —through the wordless physical theater storytelling of “The WoBo Show,” and engaged a world-renowned Shakespearean scholar who worked with our local artists and audiences to explore the relationship between power and gender in “Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender.” We are deeply grateful for the support that engaged our community and helped our local economy. – The Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre, Tucson, AZ.
These funds provided 100% salary support for ALTA’s [American Literary Translators Association] Program Director during a crucial period for our programming, including our most popular events: our online multilingual workshops, online pitch sessions, our online Building Our Future workshop (for early-career translators of color), and above all our conference, held in Milwaukee, WI with over 400 attendees. In this way, these funds provided crucial support for hundreds of our members and attendees all across the country, while providing continued employment in Tucson for one of our key employees. – American Literary Translators Association, Tucson, AZ.
The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and funding agency with a mission to advance the artistic expression, civic participation, and equitable economic growth of our diverse communities. Through forward-thinking, accountable leadership, the Arts Foundation works to affect systemic change that fosters an accessible, diverse, inclusive, and equitable local arts community.
As the designated local arts agency, the Arts Foundation provides arts and cultural development across Southern Arizona for individual working artists, artist collectives, ensembles, and nonprofit organizations through grant programs, professional development opportunities and public art program management for the City of Tucson.
The work of the Arts Foundation is made possible through generous support from the City of Tucson, Pima County, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arizona Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and individual donors. Our service area includes all counties and native sovereign nations South of the Gila River, including 372 miles along the US-Mexico international border in the South and along the 590 mile stretch of the Gila River, which flows west from the New Mexico border to the Colorado River.
The work of the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona is made possible through the generous support of our funders and donors.
