The 2015-16 budgets passed by the City of Los Angeles, the County of Los Angeles, and the State of California all include good news for arts nonprofits. While there is much work yet to be done, there are many milestones to celebrate with funding for the arts on the rise across the state. The majority of arts funding increases are a result of restorations to cuts we saw during the Great Recession.

The Los Angeles City Council moved one step closer to passing an official resolution in support of AB 580, the California Assembly bill that would fund the California Arts Council with $75 million dollars for the next fiscal year.

Americans for the Arts reported yesterday the Democratic National Party included an "arts and culture" plank in its current year party-wide platform.

The Los Angeles County Arts Commission announced $4.1 million in grants to 175 arts groups throughout the county last week.

Grants range in size from $3,500 to $223,700 and fund organizations in forty-one of Los Angeles County’s 88 municipalities.  Through this program, funding from the Arts Commission will serve an estimated ten million people through July 2013.

The James Irvine Foundation announced grants totaling $855,000 to six Los Angeles County arts organizations whose work “hold[s] significant promise for the future of the arts nationwide, particularly as they lead the way in exploring how best to adapt to demographic and technological shifts.”

According to a bulletin from Americans for the Arts Action Fund, the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Interior Subcommittee included a reduction of $14 million to the National Endowment for the Arts budget in their FY 2013 funding legislation.

The California Arts Council is in the midst of a campaign to get one million California drivers to adopt the special “Arts Plate” for their automobiles.  All proceeds from the plate sales go the Arts Plate Fund, which supports K-12 arts education programs throughout the state.