NALAC Receives $475,000 From the Ford Foundation

The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) was awarded $475,000 by the Ford Foundation to support the NALAC Fund for the Arts and launch a new re-granting initiative designed to promote intergenerational cultural transmission and community participation in the United States, Mexico and Central America.

NALAC, which celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2009, delivers services to the national Latino arts and culture sector through a series of core programs that include direct funding support, leadership training, regional and national convenings, and field research.

NALAC Executive Director Maria de Leon said, “This grant will enable NALAC to provide much needed support to an innovative community of Latino artists and organizations whose work greatly enriches the cultural life of the nation and will promote exchange and collaboration among culturally and economically linked populations in the Americas.”

The NALAC Fund for the Arts (NFA), launched in 2005 with major support from the Ford Foundation and JPMorgan Chase, has awarded more than $379,000 in three years to 128 Latino artists and Latino arts and cultural organizations working in all artistic disciplines.

The new Transnational Cultural Remittance (TCR) initiative builds on NALAC’s longstanding leadership role in supporting artistic work that addresses issues of social justice, cultural transmission and economic empowerment. The TCR initiative will support the creation and dissemination of new artistic works that directly explore, engage and articulate the complex issues facing transnational communities in the United States, Mexico and Central America.

The NALAC Transnational Cultural Remittance initiative builds on NALAC’s experience administering the NALAC Fund for the Arts and its long-term commitment to arts and culture. Guidelines for the new NALAC Transnational Cultural Remittances re-granting initiative will be available later this year.

About the Ford Foundation: The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals of strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advancing human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Russia.

About NALAC: Founded in 1989, NALAC is the only national Latino arts and culture service organization in the United States. NALAC’s core programs include the NALAC Fund for the Arts, the NALAC Leadership Institute, Regional Arts Training Workshops, the NALAC National Conference and El Aviso Latino arts magazine.

Support: NALAC receives support from the Ford Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Southwest Airlines, MetLife Foundation, Heineken USA, Texas Commission on the Arts, The Tobin Endowment, San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs, PEC United Charities, H-E-B, Our Lady of the Lake University, NALAC members and individual donors.

www.nalac.org “

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