Life Enrichment Committee
June 11, 2024
AGENDA REPORT
TO: Jestin Johnson FROM: Ashleigh Kanat
City Administrator Director, Economic and
Workforce Development
Department
SUBJECT: SUPPLEMENTAL – FY 2023-24
Informational Report on Oakland
Cultural Affairs Division’s Operations
DATE: June 5, 2024
City Administrator Approval Date:
RECOMMENDATION
Staff Recommends That The City Council Receive An Informational Report From The Oakland Cultural Affairs Division On The Status Of Its FY 2023-24 Operations.
REASON FOR SUPPLEMENTAL
At the May 14, 2024 Life Enrichment Committee meeting, the Committee requested additional details regarding payment status of Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24 Cultural Funding Grants, including Cultural Organization Assistance (General Operating), Neighborhood Voices for Festivals and Networks of Care: Teaching Artist Support Grants. The additional details requested include the names of the organizations and the status of each delayed contract (e.g., pending, executed, and paid). If the contract is pending, a note indicating why it is still pending is to be included. If the contract has been executed but is not yet paid, an estimate of the date of payment is provided, and if the contract is paid, the date is provided.
Attachment A provides an update on all of delayed Cultural Funding Grants, including the status of the contract execution; the name of the organizations awarded contracts; and the time for executing said contracts, what date it was executed and paid.
BACKGROUND
The Cultural Funding Program was established by the City Council in 1985 as the City’s mechanism to support Oakland-based nonprofit arts and cultural organizations through an annual competitive application process. These grants infuse Oakland’s neighborhoods with arts and cultural activities that increase exposure to, understanding of, and respect for diverse cultural heritages, support arts activities that engage the community, and support hands-on arts Jestin Johnson (Jun 7, 2024 08:12 PDT)
Jun 7, 2024
Jestin Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Supplemental - FY 2023-24 Informational Report on Oakland Cultural Affairs Division’s Operations
Date: June 6, 2024 Page 2
Life Enrichment Committee
June 11, 2024
instruction in Oakland’s public schools. In the past five years, the Cultural Funding Program has awarded an average of $1.4M each year to Oakland artists and arts organizations.
For FY 2023-24, the Cultural Funding Program provided grants in three categories:
Cultural Organizational Assistance (Two Year Grant) provides general operating support to established, primary arts organizations. To be eligible, an organization must have received Cultural Funding Program funding in two of the past four consecutive funding cycles.
Neighborhood Voices for Festivals builds belonging within the dynamic neighborhoods of the City by supporting culturally engaging efforts to bring our community members together through festival culture. Festivals to be supported may include, but are not limited to: block parties, parades, performances in poetry, dance, music or theater, visual art, and literary presentations, that are rooted in a sense of place.
Networks of Care: Teaching Artist Support Grants provides organizations funding for Teaching Artists conducting arts instruction for Oakland youth. The program awards grants of $10,000 to Oakland-based non-profit organizations to supplement current teaching artist salaries, and/or provide them with professional development opportunities to advance how we care for ourselves, and one another.
Cultural Funding Application Process
To ensure transparency and public trust in the distribution of public funds for the arts in Oakland, the program has established policies, review procedures, and a panel system for evaluating applications.
The Cultural Funding Program staff strive to have a diverse team of community members to serve as panelists - representing various ages, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and professions to help City staff evaluate each grant category. The grant review panelists have been selected for their expertise relevant to each grant category. Cultural Funding Staff have a panelist application accessibly year-round on the City’s website for interest community members to apply.
Grant applicants receive the biographies of each panelist the day prior to the public review panels. Biographies of panelists are also posted on the City’s website for the general public. As part of the review process, applicants have the opportunity to address the panel for three-minutes.
Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program is one of the only local grant-making agencies in the State that allows applicants to address the community peer reviewed panel. The applicant’s three- minute address is used to clarify any questions or misinterpretations that the applicant may have heard during the panel discussion.
Jestin Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Supplemental - FY 2023-24 Informational Report on Oakland Cultural Affairs Division’s Operations
Date: June 6, 2024 Page 3
Life Enrichment Committee
June 11, 2024
Panelists thoroughly discuss, evaluate and score each proposal based on established criteria. In broad terms, the criteria for the panel review are: (1) Programmatic Impact: soundness of applicant’s curriculum for arts instruction and potential for program to build social connection; (2) Cultural & Racial Equity: the extent to which the applicant’s activities includes groups and communities impacted by racial and economic disparities; (3) Finance & Management:
soundness of budget and qualifications of key personnel to execute planned programming.
Upon completion of the review process and ranking of the applications, staff determined a cut- off for grant awards and the allocation of funds. Applicants receiving an average score lower than 70 (from a possible 100 points) were automatically disqualified from funding. These funding allocations are based on the highest overall scores, and the amount of funding we have available. Staff review scores and ranking of the applicants, creating a list of recommended awards for Council consideration and approval.
Contracting Process
During the time period in which the recommended awards are being presented to City Council for review, the recommended grantees are invited to attend contracting webinars conducted by staff. These webinars familiarize organizations with the City’s contracting process, including an overview of (1) insurance requirements, (2) schedules, (3) preparing scopes of work and budget, (4) business tax certificates, and (5) the grant agreements. Staff hold one-on-one meetings with grantees to support them through the contracting process and help them understand the City’s requirements.
Grantees are notified that the time for contract execution varies significantly. This timeline can be highly impacted by the need to obtain the required insurance documents. However, after insurance is approved, the time for contract execution on average takes 8-12 weeks. A summary Jestin Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Supplemental - FY 2023-24 Informational Report on Oakland Cultural Affairs Division’s Operations
Date: June 6, 2024 Page 4
Life Enrichment Committee
June 11, 2024
of the process is as follows:
Grant Period Changes
Historically, the Cultural Funding Program has funded organization’s activities for an entire fiscal year, July 1
st through June 30th. However, this has meant that by the time grant recommendations are presented to City Council, typically in November/December, many events such as festivals have already taken place.
In January 2024, the Risk Division informed Cultural Affairs staff that they would no longer be approving insurance for festivals or other grantee events/programs that have already passed. To ensure that Risk review and contract execution occurs prior to events taking place, Cultural Affairs is changing its grant period from the fiscal year to the calendar year, January through December. This will allow staff to conduct the application process and present grant recommendations to City Council before the grant period has begun. For FY 2024-25, this also means that festivals occurring between July 1 through December 31, 2024 will not be financially supported by Cultural Affairs while staff aligns the process with the new schedule. This realignment will not affect awards already approved by City Council.
Staff have consulted with the City Attorney’s Office, City Administrators Office, Risk Management Division and the Finance Department on these planned changes.
Art & Soul Festival
Art & Soul was approved for a $20,000 grant on December 19, 2023 per Resolution No. 90058
C.M.S. to support the festival held in September 2023. B ecause Art & Soul was one of the many
Jestin Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Supplemental - FY 2023-24 Informational Report on Oakland Cultural Affairs Division’s Operations
Date: June 6, 2024 Page 5
Life Enrichment Committee
June 11, 2024
festivals that had already occurred by the time the contract process began, staff needed to approach the City Administrator for special approval to proceed, as Risk was no longer reviewing or approving insurance for festivals that had already occurred.
Cultural Affairs staff collected all insurance documents from impacted festivals from January - February 2024, and began the process of drafting an insurance waiver for CAO’s approval on February 20, 2024. CAO provided the insurance waiver for all impacted organizations to proceed on March 29, 2024. Art & Soul’s contract was forwarded to Contract Compliance for execution on April 9, 2024.
ANALYSIS
On December 19, 2023 City Council approved the 60 grant recommendations to support arts and cultural organizations and festivals per Resolution No. 90058 C.M.S .
FY23-24 Grant
Categories
No. of
Applications
Received
Total
Awards
Award
Rate
Total
Amount
Awarded
Average
Award
Amount*
Cultural
Organization
Assistance 31 27 87% $810,000 $30,000
Neighborhood
Voices for
Festivals 58 33 57% $517,000 $15,588.24
TOTALS 89 60 72% $1,327,000 $22,794
As of the May 14, 2024 Life Enrichment Committee Meeting, 42 grants had not yet been paid.
These grants are listed in Attachment A.
Contract Processing Update
On May 15, 2024, the City Administrators Office announced that all approved grants for FY 2023-24 will be processed as planned, which had an immediate impact of contract processing. Of the 42 grants that were delayed, 21 have been executed and paid (or have payment in process), and 21 are still pending.
Attachment A provides an update on all 42 of delayed Cultural Funding Grants, including the status of the contract execution; the name of the organizations awarded contracts; and the time Jestin Johnson, City Administrator
Subject: Supplemental - FY 2023-24 Informational Report on Oakland Cultural Affairs Division’s Operations
Date: June 6, 2024 Page 6
Life Enrichment Committee
June 11, 2024
for executing said contracts, what date it was executed and paid. The status of each contract is current as of June 5, 2024.
ACTION REQUESTED OF THE CITY COUNCIL
Staff Recommends That The City Council Receive An Informational Report From The Oakland Cultural Affairs Division On The Status Of Its FY 2023-24 Operations.
For questions regarding this report, please contact Roberto Bedoya, Cultural Affairs Manager, 520-236-2136.
Respectfully submitted,
ASHLEIGH KANAT
Director, Economic & Workforce Development
Department
Reviewed by:
Roberto Bedoya, Cultural Affairs Manager
Economic & Workforce Development
Department
Prepared by:
Raquel Iglesias, Cultural Funding Coordinator
Economic & Workforce Development
Department
Attachments (1):
A. FY 2023-24 Cultural Funding Grants Payment Status
Ashleigh Kanat (Jun 6, 2024 10:29 PDT)
Ashleigh Kanat
GRANTEE NAMES CURRENT STATUS Grant Contract & Required Documents Sent to Grantee
Initial Contract Documents
Received - Grantee works
with staff on requirements
Went to Risk for
Insurance Approval
Went to Contract Compliance
for Initial Review
Went to City Attorney
for Review & Final
Signatures
Staff Received Signed Contract Invoices Received by
Grantee
Paid by Accounts
Payable
API Cultural Center, Inc. PAID 1/2/2023 1/11/2024 1/12/2024 2/13/2024 3/22/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024 Attitudinal Healing Connection, Inc. PAID
1/2/2023 1/16/2024 2/7/2024 2/7/2024 3/21/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024
Creative Growth Art Center, Inc. PAID 1/2/2023 1/25/2024 1/31/2024 2/15/2024 3/22/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024 Destiny Arts Center PAYMENT IN PROCESS 1/2/2023 2/2/2024 2/5/2024 2/7/2024 3/20/2024 5/15/2024 5/28/2024 Diamano Coura West African Dance
Company Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 1/11/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/3/2024 6/4/2024
Dimensions Dance Theater, Incorporated. Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 1/16/2024 Approved via CAO waiver 3/29/2024 4/3/2024 5/21/2024
East Bay Performing Arts PAID 1/2/2023 1/11/2024 1/18/2024 2/15/2024 3/26/2024 5/15/2024 5/16/2024 5/23/2024 EastSide Arts Alliance, Inc. PAYMENT IN PROCESS
1/2/2023 1/16/2024 1/22/2024 2/8/2024 3/19/2024 5/15/2024 5/30/2024 Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park PAYMENT IN PROCESS 1/2/2023 2/6/2024 2/13/2024 2/13/2024 3/26/2024 5/15/2024 5/30/2024 Kitka, Inc. Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 2/23/2024 3/6/2024 4/3/2024 5/8/2024 Living Jazz PAID 1/2/2023 2/20/2024 2/22/2024 2/22/2024 4/17/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024 Museum of Children's Art PAID 1/2/2023 1/18/2024 1/23/2024 2/2/2024 3/14/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024 Music Is Extraordinary, Inc. PAYMENT IN PROCESS 1/2/2023 2/6/2024 Approved via CAO waiver 3/29/2024 4/3/2024 5/20/2024 5/22/2024
Oakland Ballet Company Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 1/23/2024 2/16/2024 2/23/2024 5/15/2024 Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Inc. PAID
1/2/2023 1/16/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/3/2024 5/20/2024 5/22/2024 5/22/2024
6/4/2024
Prescott Circus Theatre PAID 1/2/2023 1/18/2024 1/18/2024 2/2/2024 3/19/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024 Project Bandaloop PAYMENT IN PROCESS 1/2/2023 1/19/2024 2/20/2024 2/27/2024 5/20/2024 5/22/2024 5/23/2024 Purple Silk Music Education Foundation,
Inc. PAID 1/2/2023 1/16/2024 2/22/2024 2/23/2024 4/8/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024 The Crucible PAID
1/2/2023 1/16/2024 1/16/2024 4/3/2024 5/8/2024 5/22/2024 5/22/2024 6/4/2024
Ubuntu Theater Project, Inc. PAID
1/2/2023 3/6/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/3/2024 5/8/2024 5/23/2024 5/30/2024
6/4/2024
Youth Radio DBA YR Media PAID
1/2/2023 1/17/2024 1/17/2024 1/31/2024 4/26/2024 5/15/2024 5/22/2024 6/4/2024
Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation
for AfroCentric Oakland
Grant Documents never received
by staff. Followed up numerous
times, with no success.
1/3/2023
Alkebulan Fiscal Sponsors Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 3/8/2034 3/8/2024 4/9/2024 6/4/2024
American Indian Child Resource Center PAID 1/2/2023 2/15/2024 2/20/2024 2/23/2024 4/16/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024
ART & SOUL OAKLAND PAID
1/2/2023 1/16/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/9/2024 5/23/2024 5/30/2024 5/31/2024
6/4/2024
FY23-24 Cultural Organization Assistance (General Operating) FY23-24 Neighborhood Voices for Festival Grants
EWD - Cultural Affairs Division, Cultural Funding Program Attachment A: FY23-24 Grant Status
GRANTEE NAMES CURRENT STATUS Grant Contract & Required Documents Sent to Grantee
Initial Contract Documents
Received - Grantee works
with staff on requirements
Went to Risk for
Insurance Approval
Went to Contract Compliance
for Initial Review
Went to City Attorney
for Review & Final
Signatures
Staff Received Signed Contract Invoices Received by
Grantee
Paid by Accounts
Payable
B-H Brilliant Minds Project Inc. Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 2/16/2024 2/16/2024 3/13/2024 4/26/2024
Black Music Entrepreneur Incubator Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 2/22/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024
Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency PAID 1/2/2023 1/22/2024 1/22/2024 2/15/2024 3/22/2024 5/15/2024 5/15/2024 5/21/2024
CENTER FOR EMPOWERING REFUGEES
AND IMMIGRANTS, INC. (CERI) Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 2/15/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024 6/3/2024
Dimond Improvement Association Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 1/16/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/3/2024
DIGITAL ORGANIZING, POWER-BUILDING
AND ENGAGEMENT LABS (DOPE LABS) for
e4e Arts Contract Under Review
1/8/2023 1/16/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024
ONE EAST PALO ALTO NEIGHBORHOOD
IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE for Fua Dia
Congo Contract Under Review
1/3/2023 3/21/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/15/2024
Koreatown Oakland Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 1/12/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/11/2024
LAO IU MIEN CULTURE ASSOCIATION, INC. Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 1/16/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024
Laurel District Association Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 1/10/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024
Native American Health Center, Inc. Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 2/28/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024 5/17/2024
The Oakland Chinatown Chamber
Foundation for Oakland Chinatown
Chamber of Commerce Contract Under Review 1/3/2023
1/9/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024
Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council Contract Under Review 1/2/2023 2/14/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/4/2024
Oakland Communities United for Equity &
Justice PAID
1/2/2023 1/15/2024 2/27/2024 2/27/2024 5/16/2024 5/22/2024 5/22/2024 6/4/2024
Omnira Institute Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 1/23/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/3/2024
SAMBAFUNK, INC. Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 3/28/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/18/2024 6/4/2024
Spanish Speaking Unity Council of
Alameda County, Inc. Contract Under Review
1/2/2023 1/8/2024 Approved via CAO waiver
3/29/2024 4/3/2024
American Black Beauty Doll Association
Inc. PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
ARTogether PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Bay Area Video Coalition Inc PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Networks of Care: Teaching Artist Support Grants
GRANTEE NAMES CURRENT STATUS Grant Contract & Required Documents Sent to Grantee
Initial Contract Documents
Received - Grantee works
with staff on requirements
Went to Risk for
Insurance Approval
Went to Contract Compliance
for Initial Review
Went to City Attorney
for Review & Final
Signatures
Staff Received Signed Contract Invoices Received by
Grantee
Paid by Accounts
Payable
Cantare Con Vivo PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Chapter 510 INK PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Creative Growth Art Center, Inc. PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION Destiny Arts Center PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Dimensions Dance Theater, Incorporated. PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION Living Jazz PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Museum of Children's Art PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Music Is Extraordinary, Inc. PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Oaktown Jazz Workshops PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Prescott Circus Theatre PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Project Bandaloop PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION
Purple Silk Music Education Foundation,
Inc. PENDING SIGNED RESOLUTION