Charlotte arts initiatives fight for long-term sustainability

EPOCH TRIBE

Hannah Hasan, founder of Epoch Tribe said barriers to accessing funding for arts initiatives in historically underrepresented communities threatens their sustainability.

Charlotte’s creative community needs funding equity and consistency.

As federal funding cuts hit local and state arts initiatives, communities face the possibility of either supporting the arts through public dollars or leaving them to fend for themselves. The situation is more dire in historically underfunded and overlooked communities where sustainability is more of a challenge. 

Local urgency grew after the Infusion Fund, a temporary lifeline during the COVID pandemic, closed in 2024. Six years earlier, city leaders wanted to increase housing bonds from $15 million to $50 million, which threatened arts funding. 

“It was kind of hard to look at us cutting funding to the arts, but people needed a place to live,” former City Council member Julie Eiselt recalled.

Ultimately, arts funding was increased by $3 million. 

“I had lobbied that we not cut it, and we didn’t cut it,” said Eiselt, a member of the Arts and Culture Advisory Board. “In fact, we gave a little bit more money to an organization. But the arts have never really been front and center priority of the community, of the council from a funding standpoint, just because the other issues that we do fund are critically important.”

Arts funding typically takes a backseat compared to budget priorities like housing, public safety and economic development. Although there are more pressing issues that require public funds, the city recognizes the importance of the arts to local tourism, which makes up 14% of Charlotte's economy. Ultimately, it led to the creation of the Infusion Fund.

JULIE EISELT

Former Charlotte City Council member Julie Eiselt is a member of the Arts and Culture Advisory Board.

“Every year there's pressure to increase that funding because salaries, personnel, increase,” Eiselt said “Personnel is expensive. It's always the most expensive component. It's the most part of an industry's budget.”

In 2021, the Arts & Science Council also released its Cultural Equity Report, a 34-page examination of what leaders at the nonprofit described as an inequitable funding history and movement toward cultural equity. 

The report detailed that of 61 organizations ASC provided operational support grants to over its history up to that point, only nine were Black, Latinx, Asian, Arab or Native American organizations. Among them were A Sign of the Times of the Carolinas, Brand New Sheriff Productions, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture and JazzArts Charlotte. 

Multiple messages left with ASC for a response on its funding footprint and priorities were unreturned.

In 2024, Charlotte launched the Opportunity Fund where local artists and art organizations were awarded $1.2 million in grants. But accessing grants also comes with barriers for smaller arts organizations in underrepresented communities and artists of color. Some lean into collaborations for funding.

“We were in partnership with an organization that was co-led by a white man and a white woman and the white man was able to help us get in doors for fundraising,” said Hannah Hasan, co-founder of Epoch Tribe, a Black- and woman-led production company. “These are people we knew, people who knew us, who knew me, who knew our work. We would have never been able to get in those doors before. “That's the benefit of relationships. Off the strength of his identity, we walked through doors that had been closed to us before.”

Said Quentin Talley, founder of OnQ Performing Arts, said community contributions have been vital for the stage production company’s sustainability. 

ONQ PRODUCTIONS

OnQ Productions founder Quentin Talley said his company relies primarily on individual donations to remain sustainable.

“We had funding from different sources,” he said, “but the main portion of the funding that's helped us sustain somewhat as a company has been those individual donations for sure.”

When it comes to underrepresented groups and arts sustainability, the stress of locating sufficient funding can overshadow the creative process, leaving artists feeling underestimated.

“Folks will pay low-end $100, high-end $200 for a Broadway show,” he said. “But it costs just as much money locally to produce those shows as well and it would cost at least that much if you didn’t have folks donating and you getting grants.”

Although Charlotte’s arts community advocates for equitable funding, Eiselt contends it's time to join forces in the fight for change. “I think that there needs to be more of a concerted effort in Charlotte for arts groups to work together and be represented by an organization that is going to advocate for them for funding,” she said.

“I do think that there needs to be more of an organization that perhaps enables someone else to lead for them and advocate for them. And right now, the [Arts & Science Council] plays that role, but they have lost a lot. The city and the ASC had a broken relationship, and so there’s got to be a better relationship between whatever the arts organization is and the primary funders, which right now are the city and the county.”

If the arts community had the right support and equitable funding, quality and quantity would increase, Hasan argues, which would add to the growth of tourism the arts contribute to. 

“I imagine Black founders being less stressed and able to create and build their businesses from a place of abundance and not scarcity,” she said. “When you properly invest in Black arts and Black artists, it is something that is like a gift that keeps on giving. “It's like a trickle around effect.”

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