Work for Art is now the Arts Impact Fund of the Regional Arts & Culture Council

Donations received prior to June 30, 2018 triggered a dollar-for-dollar match from Work for Art’s Matching Challenge Fund. We distributed that match to arts and culture organizations through our grant funding. As a part of the City of Portland Council’s approval of 5% reductions across all bureaus, RACC will no longer receive $200,000 in donor match incentive from the City.

RACC administers and distributes $3.5 million annually in public funding (primarily from the City of Portland and Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties) as grant awards to individual artists and arts organizations. We are excited to begin talking about RACC’s public-private funding model in a more meaningful way. We know that a thriving arts and culture sector depends on both public funding and charitable giving to fill in the gaps where public dollars fall short.

Several of our partner companies match their employee donations. Company match always follows the employee donation – whether it is directed to our grants fund or designated to a specific organization.

Donations to the Arts Impact Fund are an essential component of RACC’s public-private grantmaking to arts and culture organizations based in the Portland tri-county region. Annually, more than 130 organizations receive RACC grant funding, encompassing arts education, cultural arts, dance, film, literary arts, media arts, music, and theater. To qualify for RACC funding, organizations must be based in Clacakamas, Multnomah, or Washington County; however, many of them serve communities across Oregon and SW Washington.

RACC grants provide many different types of support, including General Operating Support, Projects, Capacity Building, and Professional Development. RACC grants are administered by a team of experienced staff, and funding is awarded through competitive processes that involve dozens of community volunteers serving on peer panels to evaluate applications. See who we fund. 

Donations to the Arts Impact Fund continue to support the subset of organizations that benefitted from the Arts Education Fund. The dollars we raised for our Arts Education Fund made up a small percentage of our annual campaign totals. We elected to direct donations into one fund that supports the broad array of services that arts organizations provide – including arts education, community outreach, and performances and events.

Yes. You may designate all or part of your gift to any nonprofit arts organization based in Clackamas, Multnomah, or Washington County.

Yes. When you pledge $60+ we’ll send you The Arts Card, which gets you 2-for-1 tickets, for a full year, at more than 80 participating organizations.

If you have additional questions about these changes to our workplace giving program, please reach out to us at 503-823-2969 or artsimpactfund@racc.org.