Local arts leaders get creative with post-pandemic efforts

Meghan Martin and Heather Majano became leaders of their Greater Lansing arts organizations in 2019.

Within a year, both suddenly needed to mitigate the impact of the COVID pandemic on their efforts. Martin helped the nonprofit Arts Council of Greater Lansing through a heavily altered funding landscape. At the same time, Majano had to decide to pivot to a virtual-only format for the storied East Lansing Art Festival in her first year at its helm.

“A lot of the funding sources shifted during the pandemic,” said Martin, executive director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing. “We just had to get creative with how we looked for funding, whom we were asking and what kind of partnerships we could create.”

“It’s still a struggle,” Martin said.

Martin

 It has been nearly 16 months since the federal government officially declared the pandemic over in the United States. Yet, for many Michigan arts organizations, navigating a return to pre-outbreak programming remains challenging despite increased state funding.

Much of Martin’s work involves helping local organizations secure state Arts and Culture Council funding. The state dished out $11 million in the last fiscal year — the highest arts appropriation since 2004.

“We’ve spent the last few years trying to build back the programming that we previously offered and helping out our grantees who maybe weren’t able to use the funds because of programming getting canceled or helping them adjust to using our grant dollars in different ways,” Martin said.

Things are trending upward, but Martin noted that sustained success hinges on robust strategic planning and cultivating the right partnerships.

One of the Arts Council’s most recent wins came through a joint project with the Lansing Economic Development Corp. and the city’s Saginaw Corridor Improvement Authority. They hired seven local artists for a HOLLYWOOD-style Lansing sign at the corner of Saginaw Street and Grand Avenue.

In May, Majano celebrated a milestone as she oversaw the largest of the five East Lansing Art Festivals she’s spearheaded since 2020. The 61st annual iteration featured 175 artists, 30 more than in 2023, plus a renewed effort to connect the two-day downtown festival to the concurrent MSU Spring Arts and Crafts Show.

Majano

It was a far cry from the one-day, virtual-only 2020 festival and the 2021 version, which was “halved” and moved to August to “test the waters when COVID was kind of settling,” Majano explained.

Majano said she hasn’t “seen much of a change in any of our other programs because of COVID.”

One reason for this is East Lansing’s “Percent for Art Ordinance,” a 2014 policy that requires private developers to contribute 1% of the total cost of their projects to the city’s public art fund. Majano said the ordinance has been a game changer.

“The fund usually has money in the bank, which wasn’t something that we had available before,” she said. “Because this is completely outside of tax dollars and purely funded by developer money, we can requisition art on our own terms.”

However, the city applies some tax revenue to a separate program, the Cultural Arts Grant, which emphasizes “promoting cultural appreciation” for work by Black, Indigenous, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists. Applications for the 2025 grant were due last week.

“When I first started helping my supervisor organize the Cultural Arts Grant, we had $10,500 allocated to applicants. We’re now allocated $25,000,” Majano said.

Another successful effort comes in how the city accepts applicants.

“We have an artist-focused process. Instead of asking the artists to create a design to send us, we ask them to share their qualifications. That’s important because they’re often having to do the work that they’re creating and submitting for requests for proposals for free — without any certainty that they will receive jobs. That isn’t fair,” she said.

To solve that issue, East Lansing switched its policy several years ago, she said, increasing applications more than fourfold to over 40.

Back at the Arts Council headquarters, 1208 Turner St. in Old Town, Martin is preparing for her team’s strategic planning discussions this month, when staff will map out the next year-plus of programming and set goals.

With state funding finally entering a renaissance following a low point in 2011 and 2012, when state legislators gave just $1.5 million annually to the arts, Martin and Majano hope to see funding continue to rise. Michigan’s highest state art allotment was for $25.5 million in 2001. 

Of the $11 million allocated to arts programming in the 2023-’24 state budget, the Arts Council drew $70,000, while the City of East Lansing pocketed $21,000. The House pushed for an additional $4 million total, but the Senate did not follow suit.

In the meantime, Martin is working on the finishing touches for the Arts Council’s 10th annual Creative Placemaking Summit on Oct. 10 and 11. She enlisted keynote speaker Ethan Kent, a cofounder of Brooklyn-based PlacemakingX, a nonprofit network in 85 counties.

“Ironically, Ethan’s father, Fred Kent, was the keynote speaker for our first Creative Placemaking Summit, so that’s a unique opportunity that we’re excited about,” Martin said.

The goal, she said, is to keep raising the bar for local artists and arts organizations.

“We’ve cultivated those placemaking relationships across the county over the past decade. So, it’s exciting to bring everyone together over the course of two days to chart the next steps,” she said.