Arts groups have quickly mobilised following US President Donald Trump’s proposal to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in his 2026 discretionary budget request to Congress last week and the agency’s swift rescinding of already promised grants.
“Without seed support by the NEA, many states, cities and towns would struggle to secure the additional public or private funds that enable them to deliver programmes that serve their constituents,” notes a collective letter published on Tuesday (6 May) by the six US Regional Arts Organizations (USRAO), which work with local arts agencies and non-profits. “And sadly it is rural communities, which often lack access to private funding sources, who will be disproportionately impacted by a loss of NEA funding and will lose the power to shape their own cultural infrastructure.”
The USRAO urges those that have had their grants cancelled to appeal the decision, to provide documentation that shows their projects fulfil the administration’s stated priorities and to reach out to local legislators. “Now is the moment to act to fully restore the NEA and its fellow cultural agencies,” the USRAO writes in the letter.