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Mission Statement

CAP was founded in 1990 to act as an advocate for the arts, serve the public by providing services and resources for county artists and arts organizations, and encourage collaboration among arts, education, business, civic and government organizations.Learn more

Creating Opportunities for the Arts, Artists, and Audiences of Tompkins County

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2012 Grants Awarded - $226,128 in all!

December 16th, 2011

Each year, CAP administers five grant programs. For 2011/2012, CAP distributed $226,128 to Local Artists, Arts Organizations and Not-for-Profits! A list of grantees is on our main grant page.

Three of the grants are funded through the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA):
"Grants for Arts Programs" (GAP), make funds available throughout Tompkins County to libraries, arts organizations, towns, villages, community centers and the like for professional arts and cultural projects. Funded projects encompass theater performances, music concerts, childrens programming, dance performances, poetry readings and visual art.

The "Artist in Community Grants" help local artists creating new work to share in a community setting.

The "Artist/Teacher Partnership Grants" are designed to assist schools in developing programs where artists can work directly with teachers to enhance their existing curriculum.

These three programs are all very competitive. Panels of local community members and artists make recommendations to the CAP board of directors. CAP's Program Director, Robin Schwartz, has been administering these grant programs for 18 years and has the panel process down to a science: "The panelists come well prepared and ready to make hard decisions. We have such an abundance of talented and worthy artists in Tompkins County that choosing who gets funded each year can be extremely difficult. Thanks to NYSCA's support, we've been able to award over $910,000 over the past 19 years with just these three programs alone."

CAP also administers two locally funded programs.
The CAP Fellowship awards funds to five Tompkins County artists each to help advance their careers. With 45 applicants this year, choosing five was a very difficult process.

The "Arts and Culture Organizational Development Program" (ACOD) is funded through the Tompkins County Tourism Program and administered by CAP's Executive Director, Brett Bossard.  ACOD provides funds for our major arts and cultural organizations with the goal of developing the arts and cultural tourism assets of the County.

These five programs together have resulted in the funding of 50 different projects, artists or organizations with a total of $226,128.

"From dance, music, and theatre to poetry, painting, and sculpture, these grants allow Tompkins County residents to experience a truly amazing range of events," says CAP Executive Director, Brett Bossard.