A new survey released on August 4 by MASSCreative and five regional partner organizations offers a unique, regionally focused, quantitative snapshot of how recent federal funding cuts are affecting New England’s arts and culture sector. Conducted in February, the survey of 125 arts and cultural organizations sought to “assess the impacts that federal funding cuts have had on the region’s creative economy.”
The survey was conducted by MASSCreative, Arts4NH, CT Arts Alliance, the Cultural Alliance of Maine, the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), and the Vermont Creative Network. Rhode Island did not participate “for their own reasons,” MASSCreative wrote to BAR. The survey comes as cuts to and terminations from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) continue to reshape the region’s cultural landscape.
Respondents reported losing at least $13.5 million in federal, state, foundation, and individual funding in 2025. The survey found that 36 organizations lost 42 federal grants totaling more than $11.4 million. An additional $669,000 in foundation funding and $553,329 in individual donor funding were also lost, though respondents simultaneously reported an estimated “$6,175,860 net increase in foundation funding.” It is unclear whether those additional private grants were awarded in response to federal cuts.
The state-by-state findings were also uneven. Although Massachusetts has the largest creative economy in the region, organizations in the state reported losing $915,817. Connecticut organizations reported the highest losses at $5,270,006.
In a press release about the survey, MASSCreative notes that many of the affected organizations serve youth and student, aging, rural, low-income, immigrant, and BIPOC communities. “Throughout New England, 720 jobs that were fully or partially funded through federal and state funding have been impacted,” the press release says. Additionally, “30 organizations indicated they are decreasing their programs, exhibits, productions, or public services due to federal or state budget cuts.” The survey does not identify any of the participating organizations by name or specify which ones experienced the greatest losses.
“These cuts are intended to dismantle New England’s arts and cultural ecosystem. Residents and policymakers should take notice,” MASSCreative’s executive director, Emily Ruddock, notes in the press release.
The survey needs to be read with a few caveats.
Federal government grants to the arts are notoriously labor-intensive to apply for, report on, and qualify for. Because the barriers to entry are so high and the grant amounts are relatively small, neither federal nor state grants form the primary financial base for arts organizations. Therefore, the primary support US arts organizations receive from the government is their tax-exempt status and underwriting indemnity insurance. This means that while a loss of more than $11.4 million in government grants to organizations in five states seems like a large top-line number, it’s out of context relative to both the total amount of grants arts organizations receive and the rest of the ways arts organizations fund themselves. As a result, it’s only a partial view of the headwinds the sector faces today.
First, it is important to note that the survey does not account for grants that have been reinstated by the CPB, IMLS, NEA, and NEH. A number of lawsuits—against the NEH and the NEA, for example—resulted in court rulings that cuts initiated by DOGE were illegal and ordered the grants to be reinstated. Second, because the survey participants are not identified and the methodology is not explained, it’s not possible to tell how many respondents are nonprofits versus small or individual commercial entities, such as dance companies or individual artists.
This survey, therefore, is best understood as a narrow snapshot in time. Perhaps most useful is that it points to a systemic and pernicious problem plaguing the US arts and culture sector: The decentralized structure of the arts in the US makes it difficult to measure the downstream effects of grant cuts (from federal, state, and private philanthropy) and the impact of ideologically based policies on the goods and services produced in the cultural sector.
The survey was released as Congress gears up for budget season. Already, the fiscal year 2027 federal budget fights signal that the arts in the US will be under renewed threat. President Trump is proposing to slash the Smithsonian’s budget (read about this in more detail below) and, again, to “shutter the NEA, NEH, and IMLS for good.” Congress has until September 30 to approve the budget and, as it did last year, override Trump’s wishes by continuing to fund the agencies. In MASSCreative’s press release about the survey, Harold Steward, executive director of New England Foundation for the Arts and MASSCreative board member, says, “We urge Congress to maintain strong federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts and preserve the 40% allocation for the federal-state partnership in the FY27 budget.”
Arts Policy at the MA State House: An Update
On Beacon Hill, last week’s legislative work at the State Senate wrapped up with more of a whimper than a bang.
The “fun coalition” of State Senators Julian Cyr, Dylan Fernandes, Robyn Kennedy, Pavel Payano, Jo Comerford, Adam Gómez, and Paul Feeney was arguably the big winner. Of the nearly dozen amendments they filed to add to S.3718, otherwise known by the pithy and memorable name An Act relative to economic development in the Commonwealth, six were adopted. These include:
- Amendment 20: Cap the resale price of concert tickets
- Amendment 70: Expand support for agrotourism
- Amendment 78: Lift Massachusetts’s ban on happy hour via local option
- Amendment 309: Make permanent public drinking districts
- Amendment 354: Establish a micro-grant program for performers, artists, and promoters to spur entertainment and nightlife
- Amendment 595: Develop a plan to host a set of international soccer matches
State Senator Liz Miranda’s Amendment 29, which would have included language from the Creative Space Act, did not pass the vote and so was not added to the bill.
In an email, MASSCreative Director Emily Rudock wrote, “Amendment #29 would have included the Creative Space Act in the economic development bond bill, giving communities more tools to save and expand workspaces for artists and creatives. The legislation would give cities and towns the option to establish creative space trusts and implement a statewide definition for creative maker and presentation spaces. We applaud Senator Miranda for continuing to champion common sense solutions that cost the state nothing but fight against further displacement of artists and creative workers.”
As for next steps, the Conference Committee (made up of three House members and three Senate members) assigned to the bill has to reconcile the differences between the House version of the economic development bill, H.5562 (amended and engrossed by H.5567), An Act relative to economic development in the Commonwealth, and the Senate version, S.3718, effectively merging them into one bill before it can move to the floor for a vote.
Hope isn’t necessarily lost for the Creative Space Act. Just because it wasn’t added to the economic development act “does not mean the bill is dead,” said Ruddock in a phone interview on July 20. “This [S.3718] is a really helpful vehicle to drop policy change into. But the bill technically has until January 5 to be passed, so we will continue to work on it and advocate for it.”
For his part, Cyr is shifting into summer mode in P-town, weighing in on the effects of Ozempic on bear culture in a recent New York Times piece.
