American Rescue Plan COVID Relief Grant: Guidelines

The ARP COVID Relief grant program is a special funding opportunity from the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC) made possible from a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts through the Federal American Rescue Plan. ARP funds distributed through MAC will provide one-time grants to eligible non-profit arts organizations in Mississippi to provide organizational support due to the financial impact created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grant Objective

Unlike other special grant programs that support projects, ARP funding focuses solely on helping arts organizations maintain their operations and thus, are limited to eligible organizations that can show eligible costs including salaries, rent and utilities. These eligibility requirements apply to both phases of ARP funds listed below.

MAC will award these funds in two phases.

Phase 1: ARP COVID Relief

ARP COVID Relief (ARP Round 1) Opens Sept 23, Deadline: Oct 15 (ARP COVID Relief Grants are now closed.)

MAC is awarding $723,500 from the NEA to MAC’s current FY22 Operating Grantees*. For this reason, Phase 1 is INVITE-ONLY.

Grant Review Steps and Timeline for Award:

  1. Invited applicants (MAC’s current Operating grantees) are asked to fill out the ARP COVID Relief grant application.
  2. Within the application, applicants will choose between personnel related expenses or facility related expenses incurred during the project period (8/1/2021 – 1/1/2022); applicants may also choose a combination of the two.
  3. MAC staff conducts a review of each application to ensure that the expenses listed fit within the eligibility requirements and works with the grantee to correct the application if needed.
  4. As part of the review, MAC communicates directly with applicants to ensure accurate expenses are requested up to the amount for which the grantee was pre-approved*.
  5. After MAC staff completes its review, MAC’s Director of Grants additionally reviews the application for accuracy.
  6. After accurancy and eligibility has been ensured, MAC notifies the applicant and issues a grant contract with the total award amount.
  7. Once the contract has been signed by the grant’s Authorizing Official and returned to MAC, 100% payment is made.
  8. In order to ensure timely distribution of this funding, funds are issued to Operating grantees upon receipt of signed contract.

In the interest of supporting Mississippi’s arts institutions during a time of great need, 100% is paid upon completion of a successful application and review of eligible expenses. Due to its status as federal emergency funding, ARP grants does not require matching funds.

*How were FY22 Operating Grantees determined?

Operating Grant applications are open to arts focused institutions each March. Eligible organizations should have arts as their primary focus and mission and must be 501c3 nonprofit. Operating grants serve as a way to assist these core organizations maintain their financial stability, build their organizational capacity, improve their artist programs, and broaden their programs throughout the community. 

ARP Phase 1 (COVID Relief) grant amounts were determined based on their grant award amount in FY22. Because Operating Grantees have a proven track record and have successfully navigated through MAC’s review process within the past year, the funding levels for ARP funding were “pre-approved” so long as eligible expenses could be shown through the application. Funding levels for ARP Grants correspond to the category that Operating Grantees recieved in FY22 – these levels are determined based on the organization’s previous year’s income as detailed below.

Operating Grant Review and Criteria: Each year, the amount an organization is eligible to apply for is based on its previous year’s total income. These funding categories are divided into 3 major categories of maximum funding requests.

  • Up to $7,500: Volunteer-run organization may apply for 25% of the organization’s last completed fiscal year’s income, not to exceed $7,500.
  • Up to $20,000: Staffed organizations with an annual budget of at least $30,000 may apply for 25% of the last completed fiscal year’s income, not to exceed $20,000.
  • Up to $30,000: Staffed organizations with an annual budget of more than $250,000 may apply for up to 10% of the actual cash revenue for operating expenses of the last completed fiscal year, not to exceed $30,000.

Operating Grant applications are reviewed each spring by a panel of experts in each program area (Arts Industry, Folk and Traditional Arts and Arts Based Community Development organizations) using the following criteria:

  1. Goals and Outcomes (20 points)
  2. Quality of Project Activities and Artistic Excellence (30 points)
  3. Public Participation and Access (30 points)
  4. Ability to Achieve Goals and Evaluate Success (20 points)

Phase 2: RESCUE Grants

*Eligible Organizations

RESCUE Grants are OPEN to eligible 501c3 arts and folk arts organizations with eligible expenses (salaries, rent, utilities). To be eligible, an organization’s mission MUST be primarily arts-focused and documentation of expenses that align with eligible costs must be provided.

In accordance with our funding partners, priority funding for RESCUE Grants will be given to arts organizations whose budgets are under $250,000, those who are BIPOC led/majority served and rural based arts organizations (for the purposes of this grant, rural is defined as a community with less than 50,000 residents).

Phase 2: (RESCUE Grants) recipients will be notified no earlier than December 13, 2021.

*Eligible Expenses

Both phases of ARP funds are intended to stabilize arts organizations during the current economic situation and are NOT to be used for new programming. 

Eligible uses for both Phases of ARP funds to arts-focused organizations include:

  • Staff Salaries – support salaries and fringe benefits for permanent, full-time or part-time staff working for an organization.
  • Facility Costs – Supporting rent, utilities and other required ongoing expenses related to the facilities used by the organization. The funds cannot be used to pay for building projects, making updates to facilities or purchasing equipment.

MAC offered up to $4,000 for RESCUE grants for eligible expenses to eligible organizations.

RESCUE Grants are now closed.

Grant Award and Administration

  • MAC will pay successful applicants the full grant awarded upon receipt of a completed grant application, signed grant contract and other required documents. MAC reserves the right to bar any grantee from future funding and may request return of funds if required final reporting documents to document expenditures are not completed. 
  • If the grantee is receiving emergency funds from other federally funded sources (including direct ARP grants from the NEA, Mississippi Humanities Council, South Arts or other federally funded grants through the American Rescue plan, they may receive MAC funding but are prohibited from “double-charging” the same expense to the multiple grants. Each grant should be tracked to its own eligible expenses and the funds kept separate from other grant awards (no co-mingling of funds). Grantees should implement their own internal tracking to prove that no double charging took place.
  • Since the source of the grant funds is the federal government, grantees will be required to follow the standard rules that apply to federal grant recipients, including:
  • Grant award should be acknowledged as a sub-grant award from the NEA.
    • Coding and tracking all expenses on this grant separately from other income sources
    • Comply with all national policies for MAC sub-grantees detailed in the NEA’s “General Terms and Conditions for Partnership Agreements” document (pages 23-26).

Any questions about either round of ARP Grants (COVID Relief and RESCUE) can be directed to MAC ARP Grants Manager, Elaine Maisel at mississippiartscommission@gmail.com