Kateri Cale, artistic director of Echo Theatre. Echo received a Pop-Up Grant from TACA last fall.

The Arts Community Alliance has announced an expansion of its Pop-Up Grant program to include Artist Bonus funds, a new source of funding for individual artists, providing them financial support while the arts continue to feel the impact of the pandemic, while extending the program through 2021.

The addition of the artist bonus funding is made possible by a $180,000 gift from the March Family Foundation.

The Pop-Up Grant program debuted in August 2020 as part of the new TACA Resiliency Initiative, and TACA has distributed Pop-Up Grants since then as small, unrestricted disbursements to arts organizations demonstrating quality short-term programming, exceptional creativity and innovation. These monthly merit-based awards are designed to increase the awareness of artistic work happening in and around the community. Some recipients so far include Echo Theater, Dallas Summer Musicals,  TITAS/Dance Unbound and Bruce Wood Dance. A complete listing of Pop-Up grantees to-date can be found here.

Arts organizations that receive a TACA Pop-Up Grant are permitted to use them as unrestricted funding for the organization.  Last year, TACA distributed $35,000 in Pop-Up Grants. For 2021, organizations with operating budgets of $5 million or less receiving a Pop-Up Grant will also receive additional Artist Bonus funds, which will be disbursed by the grantee to the “Key Artists” and “Supporting Artists” involved in the awarded Pop-Up Grant program on a 2:1 ratio.  The total Artist Bonus funds distributed are equal to two-times the grantee’s unrestricted Pop-Up Grant; for example, if a grantee receives an unrestricted Pop-Up Grant of $2,000, the organization will receive additional Artist Bonus funds in the amount of $4,000 to be awarded to the artists).

In conjunction with the March Family Foundation gift, TACA’S January Pop-Up Grantees are The Cedars Union, The Cube, Kitchen Dog Theater, Shakespeare Dallas and Soul Rep Theatre Company. They each will receive unrestricted grants between $500-$2,000 plus Artist Bonus grants between $1,000-$4,000.

— Tammye Nash