On Tuesday, the Director of Grants, Jessica McElwee, told the Fort Myers Public Art Committee that the city is preparing to open the application window for this year’s arts and culture grants.
“We’ll be bringing this before City Council at their March 31st workshop to get their stamp of approval before we launch,” McElwee said. “If all goes well on Monday, we hope to launch Tuesday the first to keep it consistent with last year’s process. And then we will close Friday, May the 16th. That’s our intention right now.”
City Council increased the aggregate amount of arts and culture grants it will award this year.
“City Council made $150,000 available in this fiscal year, 2025, for the arts grants,” McElwee reported. “The purpose behind that was to further the reach of arts and culture within our community because we celebrate and support the work of local artists, artist groups and organizations in our community that do so much to beautify and enhance our economy.”
The allocation represents an increase of $50,000 over last year.
“This was partially in response to some of the funding cuts that came down from the state,” McElwee said. “We know there will be greater need in our community this year, so the hope was to extend the reach of what we could do for more organizations."
There are more than 100 arts and culture organizations operating within the city of Fort Myers, and twice that number of individual artists who live within the city. To encompass a greater number of grant applicants, the city has lowered the amount that any one artist, artist group or arts organization can receive.
“So this year, we will have $8,000 for organizations, which was the highest amount awarded last year, $5,000 for groups and $1,500 for individuals,” McElwee noted.
MORE INFORMATION:
In 2024, the city of Fort Myers received applications totaling $243,000 and paid out $100,000 in arts and culture grants. In addition, it expended considerable sums for its emergency reserve fund to the Alliance for the Arts, Florida Repertory Theatre, Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center and The Laboratory Theater of Florida to help those organizations make up some or all of the grant money approved by the Florida Legislature but vetoed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
The increase in grant money from $100,000 in 2024 to $150,000 in 2025 not only recognizes the ongoing need of city-based arts organizations to replace the grant money they did not get from the state last year, but also the possibility that no art grants will be forthcoming from the state of Florida next year, either.
According to the Americans for the Arts Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 survey, Fort Myers arts and culture sector generated $98.7 million in economic activity during calendar year 2022. However, since only 16 of the 116 arts organizations based within the city participated in AEP6, the actual economic impact of the arts and culture sector was in all likelihood considerably greater. In addition, spending by arts organizations and their audiences was down in the last quarter of 2022 as all of Southwest Florida recovered from the damages and power outages that followed Hurricane Ian, which made landfall on Cayo Costa on September 28. So supporting city-based artists, artist groups and arts organizations advances the economic interest of the city, its residents and business owners.
However, the $150,000 allocation represents just slightly more than two-tenths of a percent of the city's operating and capital budget of $662,683,964 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025.
After the application window closes, a committee composed of city staff will score the applications and submit the totals to City Council on Monday, June 16.
While grants may be awarded only to artists residing within the city and city-based arts organizations and artist groups, all project types are available for support.
“One of the fun parts of this job is getting to see the creativity of so many different people and seeing how many different projects people come up with,” McElwee said. “We don’t limit by any type of project, but applicants are required to demonstrate how their project will benefit the community and have an impact on our residents either through a positive event, positive experience, beautification or some other metric.”
During her presentation to the Public Art Committee, McElwee summarized the grading/scoring rubric that staff will apply to each application. McElwee urged potential applicants to study the criteria in order to improve their chances of being awarded a grant.
Visit https://www.fortmyers.gov/2155/Arts-Culture-Grants for more information, including eligibility, grading criteria and an application.
The City of Fort Myers will host an application webinar from 3 to 4 p.m. on March 26. Use the Zoom information following to access the meeting. City of Fort Myers Arts and Culture Grant FY 2025 Webinar.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.