Oregon Cultural Trust Awards Record-breaking $4.5 Million Across The State To Support Cultural Organizations (Photo) - 09/11/26
Salem, Ore. — The Oregon Cultural Trust – the state’s unique funding engine for arts, culture, heritage and humanities – will provide a record $4.5 million to more than 450 organizations across the state this fiscal year thanks to donations received by Oregonians.
A visionary idea founded by the Oregon Legislature 25 years ago, the Cultural Tax Credit allows Oregonians who donate to a qualifying cultural nonprofit to also claim a 100-percent matching tax credit by giving an equal amount to the Cultural Trust. This redirection by Oregonians for Oregonians provides stable, ongoing funding to strengthen culture in Oregon.
The $4.5 million in grants distributed this fiscal year (FY27) is possible thanks to the generosity of more than 10,000 Oregonians who gave to the Oregon Cultural Trust last year (FY26).
Distribution of funds is defined in Oregon statute ORS 359. Through this unique model, the only one of its kind in the nation, the Cultural Trust provides funding to five state cultural partners, 45 regional County and Tribal Cultural Coalitions and more than 450 cultural nonprofits and organizations each year.
“Oregon’s big idea of funding arts, heritage and humanities, established a generation ago, continues to sustain the core components of community vitality and resilience – and yet as we have received an increase in donations, so have the requests for support increased,” said Amy Lewin, Oregon’s director of arts and culture. “This unique funding model is becoming a critical resource for supporting learning, historic preservation and valued engagement for communities large and small and in every corner of the state.”
For this fiscal year, the $4.5 million is being distributed as follows:
Cultural Partners: $1,125,423
The Cultural Trust’s five core partners—Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Heritage Commission, Oregon Humanities, Oregon Historical Society and the State Historic Preservation Office—will receive a combined $1,125,423.
Cultural Coalitions: $1,125,423
Oregon’s County and Tribal Cultural Coalitions–comprised of volunteers in all of Oregon’s counties and Tribes who build community and strengthen local economies through cultural endeavors–will receive a combined $1,125,423. Funds are distributed to each Coalition in a per capita formula that equitably allocates resources across the state. Locally led Coalitions regrant these funds within their communities each year.
Cultural Development Grants: $2,250,846
In addition, the Trust will distribute $2,250,846 to 104 cultural nonprofits through the competitive Cultural Development Program. These grants go toward serving projects and programs across the state.
This year’s Cultural Development grant awards range from $5,000 to $40,000. Forty-nine percent of eligible applications were funded between 100 and 75 percent of their requested amounts.
Cultural Development Program awards fund nonprofit projects or programs that increase access to culture, invest in organizational capacity, support community creativity and/or provide cultural heritage and historic preservation. Applications were reviewed and scored by peer review panels.
Award recipients include:
Albina Music Trust, Portland: $40,000
To support the Albina Community Archive, the largest digital repository documenting the legacy of Black Oregonians with a focus on preserving the Albina community's arts and culture legacy. The Albina Community Archive is a shared cultural resource that currently features over 200 collections and 15,000 items including: photos, film, audio recordings, print materials, articles and oral histories. Funding from the Cultural Trust will directly support this preservation work serving Oregon's largest historically Black community.
Capital Community Media, Salem: $40,000
To support the creation of a new Spanish-language TV broadcast, featuring content specific to Salem. This project will include: Outreach and community engagement to better understand media needs for the Latiné community, grassroots media arts training for Spanish speakers in our community, creation of hyper-local Spanish-language video content, and distribution of content through a regularly scheduled cable TV block and available on-demand on YouTube, AppleTV, Hulu and CC:Media’s new mobile app.
Clatsop County Historical Society, Warrenton: $14,000
To support the expansion of the Clatsop County Historical Society (CCHS) Digital Scanning Center through the acquisition of large-format digitization equipment and video preservation technology that will recover, preserve and share important Oregon cultural heritage materials. This project will allow the Clatsop County Historical Society to digitize oversized historic maps, blueprints, architectural drawings and other fragile documents that currently exceed existing scanning capacity. It will also create an in-house video preservation workstation to convert archival VHS recordings and several hours of pioneer and community oral history interviews into accessible digital formats.
Dry Canyon Arts Association, Redmond: $31,000
To support Phase II of the Dry Canyon Arts Association’s Community Art Center. In December 2025, we completed and opened Phase I of the Art Center serving our community with galleries for displaying and selling their art as well as two classrooms. Phase II involves renovating an adjoining 1,500 square feet into more classroom space to be used for art instruction and workspace. Access to workspace and kilns in the community art center will enable artists to engage in their art, learn new techniques and collaborate with fellow artists.
Eastside Jewish Commons, Portland: $28,000
To support the production of the third annual Portland Jewish Music Festival, May 5-16, 2027, at the Eastside Jewish Commons in Portland. This sonic celebration of the international Jewish diaspora will feature upward of 40 outstanding local, national and international artists working in traditional and highly contemporary forms. The festival will include accessibly priced evening concerts, song circles, workshops and family-friendly events.
enTaiko, Portland: $38,000
To support UNDERGROUND PULSE: enTaiko’s Inclusive Performance Project. This project is a multidisciplinary performance, education and advocacy initiative that expands access to cultural performance in Oregon by removing barriers for deaf and hard of hearing, blind, disabled and non-disabled artists and audiences. The project features collaborations with Yumenko (deaf and hard of hearing Taiko ensemble), internationally recognized blind guitarist Hiroaki Tagawa, AXIS Dance Company and Portland-based Gathered DanceAbility to co-create multisensory performances integrating rhythm, movement and visual design.
Josephine Community Library Foundation, Grants Pass: $40,000
To support the creation of construction documents for a new Grants Pass library. The Josephine Community Library Foundation is moving forward toward a vibrant new downtown library. In 2023, the library foundation purchased a property in downtown Grants Pass and began working with ZCS Engineering & Architecture on concept design. Schematic design was conducted in 2025, and the new library is now in the design development phase. Groundbreaking for the new library is planned for 2028.
Lincoln City Cultural Center, Inc., Lincoln City: $16,000
To support the realignment of the Lincoln City Cultural Center's burgeoning youth programs in visual and performing arts under a new umbrella department, with a designated coordinator position providing administrative support for camps, classes, field trips and outreach. This strategic reorganization will increase the Center's capacity to deliver arts experiences for young people and provide support for partner organizations who seek to use our venue to do the same.
Nuu-da' Mv-ne', Eugene: $35,000
To support a staff position at a budding language revitalization center dedicated to supporting Native language teachers and materials for the speech community of Nuu-wee-ya’, an Indigenous language of Oregon. Founded in 2017, the organization has been steadily building capacity to bring together Nuu-wee-ya’ language teachers and linguists. This growth has culminated in the 2025 launch of the Nuu-wee-ya’ Grammar Coalition, which brings together language teachers, speakers and linguists across all dialects of the language to create impactful teaching and learning materials.
Portland Art Museum, Portland: $40,000
To support the planning, conservation activities and design of the Portland Art Museum’s new Native American permanent collections galleries, reimagined in collaboration with Native American artists, scholars and community members. The Native American collection galleries are in need of a major renovation and interpretive overhaul, including conservation and revised cataloging, to provide holistic caretaking to protect and present work from one of the Museum’s most popular collections.
Portland Gay Men's Chorus, Inc., Portland: $12,000
The funding provides support for Portland Gay Men’s Chorus’s Rural Harmony Tour, a multi-community cultural access initiative designed to bring affirming, high-quality choral music and storytelling to rural Oregon communities with limited access to 2SLGBTQ+ cultural programming. Portland Gay Men’s Chorus will travel to three rural Oregon communities, Prineville, Madras/Sisters and Klamath Falls, to present free or low-cost performances that combine live choral music, movement and personal storytelling centered on hope, belonging, resilience and acceptance.
SMART Reading, Portland: $10,000
To support access to culturally inclusive children’s literature and reading experiences for underserved Oregon communities by funding the purchase and distribution of diverse books in rural parts of Oregon. SMART Reading is a children’s literacy nonprofit that provides free, one-on-one reading sessions and books to over 20,000 children annually in Oregon’s highest-need schools and early learning sites, including Title 1 schools, Head Start programs and relief nurseries in rural and urban areas.
The Vanport Mosaic, Portland: $40,000
To support the launch of the Vanport Community Archive, a public digital home for the largest collection of oral histories, photographs and primary-source materials documenting Vanport, Oregon's second-largest city before the 1948 Columbia River flood erased it. Over the past decade, Vanport Mosaic has worked with survivors and descendants, most now in their 80s and 90s, to record nearly 200 oral history interviews and digitize family photographs, letters, scrapbooks and newspapers, building the largest primary-source collection on Vanport.
See a full list of County and Tribal Cultural Coalitions Award Allocations and Cultural Development Awards, alphabetically by region on the Cultural Trust website.
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About the Oregon Cultural Trust
Created in 2001 by the Oregon Legislature, the Oregon Cultural Trust serves as an ongoing funding engine for arts, heritage and humanities. Funding comes through the Cultural Tax Credit, which empowers Oregonians to direct a portion of their state taxes to invest in culture across the state. A percentage of donations go directly to 45 county and Tribal Cultural Coalitions, partner organizations and cultural nonprofits, and a portion goes toward helping grow a permanent endowment. Nested within Business Oregon, the Cultural Trust helps support the economies, cultural resources, educational opportunities and vibrancy of communities throughout the state. Learn more at CulturalTrust.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
