WORT is happy to announce we’re one of 385 organizations across the state to be awarded a cultural arts grant.
Governor Tony Evers recently made the announcement that $15 million in COVID-19 Cultural Organization Grants (CCOG) had been awarded to cultural organizations across Wisconsin.
We thank the CCOG and the Wisconsin Department of Administration for awarding WORT one of these grants. We are the fortunate recipient of a $3800 grant to help cover the costs of updating our ventilation system (increasing air-turnover in the building) and installing equipment to clean the air and surfaces of viruses.
These measures are a necessary first step in making the WORT building safer for current staff and for volunteers, when all is in place for their return. Find more details about our efforts here.
Administered by the Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA), the COVID-19 Cultural Organizations Grant program provided grants to nonprofit organizations whose primary missions are to produce, present, or exhibit music, dance, theater, literature, and the visual arts, or items of environmental or scientific interest. Grant awards can be used to cover pandemic-related impacts, cleaning and sanitization, and purchases of services or equipment to facilitate employee telework.
WORT closed its studios to all but essential staff on March 24, 2020. In order to stay on the air, we purchased mics, software licenses, and other equipment. We could not put off these expenses and continue to fulfill our commitment to our community at such a crucial time.
Many listeners contacted us to let us know how important WORT was in their lives, both during the early days of lockdown when most of us were homebound, as well as more recently when we’ve begun to feel the toll of missing our summer indulgence in an extravagance of live music.
WORT listeners responded generously to our appeals for help covering these added COVID related expenses (during our Summer and Fall Pledge drives, as well as by mail). That left us in the fortunate position of making a small request for updates to our HVAC system that would improve air quality and air safety at WORT.
The 385 cultural organizations requested grants totaling over $27,000,000, almost double the $15,000,000 that was available. Instead of leaving any of the qualifying organizations out, the Grant Program responded by issuing grants at 57% of the requested amounts to all the organizations that qualified.
Learn more about the COVID-19 Cultural Organization Grant Program here and view a full list of grant winners here.
WORT congratulates our fellow grant winners and we look forward to working with as many of them as possible as soon as it’s feasible.
Special thanks to the thousands of WORT listeners who donated in time for us to stay on the air. We were able to do it only because you value our service. Thank you!
