CLMP, LitNet, WITS Alliance & Poetry Coalition Join Forces to Advocate for Literary Funding

April 21, 2020

Nonprofit literary arts coalitions the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), LitNet, Writers in the Schools (WITS) Alliance, and the Poetry Coalition have released the following letter, which is being distributed to philanthropic institutions, advocating for emergency support of the 300+ organizations they represent.

Dear Friends,

We write to you on behalf of over 300 nonprofit literary arts organizations and publishers throughout the United States whose work has taken on new significance in this unprecedented time. Reading offers a vital space for people to find solace and connection; writing provides a meaningful way for people of all ages to communicate their experiences, to process grief and pain, and to imagine the future. We need dedicated emergency assistance from the philanthropic community to ensure our efforts in the months and year ahead.

Collectively, nonprofit literary organizations and publishers have a presence throughout America and reach tens of millions of readers annually. A unique and key part of the arts and culture sector, our organizations spend more than $110 million annually to offer programs and publications to our communities and employ thousands of people. Since shelter-at-home orders have been in place we have seen remarkable increases in digital engagement and have pivoted to offer powerful new initiatives to meet the moment, including online readings and workshops, virtual book festivals and book clubs, and remote learning curriculum for K-12 schools.

The literary arts are perhaps our most democratic art form, reaching millions of Americans through free and low-cost programming. The nonprofit organizations we represent produce literary journals, books, festivals, conferences, retreats, writers-in-the-schools programs, poetry readings, writing workshops, and much more. We serve readers and writers who come from every demographic by:

• publishing the work of poets and writers, making it available to the widest possible readership. Publication fees paid by publishers are an important income stream for writers;
• presenting poets and writers through readings, lectures, panels, and conversations at conferences, festivals, schools, libraries, and performance spaces. These appearances help introduce writers to readers and provide honorariums to speakers, another essential income stream;
• teaching creative writing, including through education initiatives in prisons, senior centers, hospitals, and in-school and after-school programs. Teaching widens the readership for writers’ work and provides income for thousands of teaching artists;
• leading workshops and retreats that offer essential spaces for creative expression, gathering writers together in ways that have a lasting impact on their careers;
• creating public art projects that place poems and prose in shared civic spaces—from sidewalks to parks to buses and subways—making the literary arts part of everyday life;
• honoring the achievements of poets and writers, giving their work visibility in the media, reaching new readers, and helping them secure employment and publication opportunities; and
• supporting the creative practice of poets and writers by providing grants and fellowships to help sustain them so they can create new work.

Despite the breadth of work that literary arts nonprofits offer, they are among the most vulnerable cultural organizations. The majority of our organizations have modest budgets, limited financial resources, and all have been deeply impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, losing funding due to cancelled lectures, workshops, fundraising events, and in-school programs, as well as a precipitous loss in book sales. Those with spring and summer galas have experienced considerable loss of revenue, and those with fall galas are anticipating cancellations. Across the board, the financial losses are severe. Members report already suffering over $4 million in losses and forecast losses nearing $20 million over the next four months.

Without our presence, literary culture in America will markedly diminish. Our organizations bring writers into public schools, host retreats and provide mentorship for writers of color, encourage teen writers through poetry slams, facilitate a broad range of writing workshops, gather entire cities together at festivals, and have made possible donations of over a million books to underserved communities. Our nonprofit publishers share the work of a diverse array of authors, and are often the place where writers and translators are published for the first time, launching their careers. Books published by our presses, and poets and writers funded by our organizations, have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, Lambda Literary Awards, and more.

Collectively, our members celebrate language, promote reading, and lift up the transformative power of written expression. If the ecosystem we are a central part of collapses, it will significantly harm poets and writers, readers and communities. Our work is an essential thread in the social, educational, and cultural fabric of the United States.

Please help us ensure that nonprofit literary arts organizations and publishers can continue responding creatively and powerfully to our immediate crisis, and remain viable in the months and years ahead as an important part of the recovery.

We would be grateful for an opportunity to talk with you about the scope and impact of the nonprofit literary field, and how we might partner toward sustaining the organizations we represent.

Thank you for your consideration.

CLMP / LitNet / WITS Alliance / Poetry Coalition

The Arts Sector and COVID-19 Relief

Arts Sector Calls for Federal Support

May 2020 

As Congress and the Administration prepare additional forms of COVID-19 federal assistance, we call for relief that will sustain the arts sector’s unique capacity to support the U.S. economy, uplift the human spirit, animate the issues of our time, and provide lifelong learning. In the months and years to come, the country will need the arts and culture sector to deliver on its unique mission and to catalyze economic activity. The unexpected loss of revenue and the declines in charitable contributions are immediately damaging arts organizations and individual livelihoods and will worsen over time. 

The arts sector serves artistic and educational missions through myriad occupations filled by individuals who work in full-time, part-time, hourly, seasonal, and freelance capacities. In March 2020, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the arts and culture workforce contributed $877.8 billion, or 4.5 percent, to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017. The arts sector is an economic engine that—prior to the pandemic—directly employed more than 5 million workers. The next COVID-19 federal relief efforts should support the arts workforce and arts sector continuity: 

• Expand and recapitalize the Paycheck Protection Program resources, provide new opportunities for those that have exhausted initial PPP funds, remove restrictions and burdens for self-employed applicants,eliminate the 500-employee cap, and provide dedicated funding for nonprofit organizations. Extend the duration of the program and the loan forgiveness period, expand eligibility and allowable costs, and swiftly issue clear loan forgiveness guidance. 

• Fully fund the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and eliminate the $1,000 per employee cap imposed by SBA, so businesses with one or very few employees can access funds. 

• Provide streamlined, low-interest forgivable loans to assist microbusinesses (self-employed, sole proprietors, partnerships, freelancers, and LLCs) with zero or few employees/low net business income that have documented fixed business expenses such as rent/mortgage interest, utilities, business insurance, and debt service and are not adequately served by current programs. 

• Provide loan forgiveness for nonprofits through the Main Street Lending Program and the Economic Stabilization Fund to support payroll costs and fixed overhead costs and ensure eligibility for nonprofit employers with more than 500 employees that have been left out of current relief provisions. 

• Expand the duration of pandemic unemployment benefits and improve guidelines for implementation so that artists and other gig economy workers with mixed income sources (such as W-2 and 1099) receive full support rather than unfairly being limited to partial benefits. Update Disaster Unemployment Assistance to ensure support for artists and other gig economy workers in the long term. 

• Increase charitable giving by removing the $300 cap on the above-the-line tax incentive for non- itemizers and allowing all taxpayers to claim the deduction on both 2019 and 2020 tax returns. Maintain the CARES Act removal of the Adjusted Gross Income limitation on deductibility of charitable gifts for 2021 and beyond. 

• Provide assistance for single- and multi-employer pension funds to protect artists’ retirement security. 

• Expand access to health coverage and care by including a one-time special enrollment period in relief legislation and removing access and affordability barriers to health coverage for artists and arts workers that have atypical employment structures. 

• Support the U.S. creative economy, which is growing at twice the rate of most other sectors, by supporting proposals in the PLACE Act (S.3232) to amend the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the Public Work and Economic Development Act, the Small Business Act, the New Markets Tax Credit, the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act, and the Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to improve access to existing federal workforce development opportunities for creative businesses and creative workers. 

The Arts Sector and COVID-19 Relief (May 2020) 

The arts sector is innovating to provide online arts experiences and distance learning opportunities, preparing to serve audiences when quarantine orders are lifted, and will be an essential partner in jump-starting national, state, and local efforts during and after COVID-19. The federal government should support ongoing creative sector activity: 

• Support a complete education for all students through federal education funding and distance learning resources that will increase the capacity of state and local education agencies to ensure equitable access to arts education as part of a well-rounded education for all learners amidst the COVID-19 crisis and beyond. 

• Adopt an emergency broadband benefit to ensure that all people, no matter their income or location, have access to high speed broadband. Ensuring connectivity enables more equitable participation in artistic, educational, and cultural activity taking place online. 

• Approve substantial funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute of Museum and Library Services, as they administer dedicated COVID-19 relief to address the unique needs of cultural organizations. 

• Maximize the impact of new and continued funding for the National Endowment for the Arts beyond the $75 million investment in the CARES Act by making COVID-19 relief grants available to all eligible organizations as defined in the NEA’s authorization statute ( 20 U.S.C. §954); expanding waivers for public/private matching requirements to apply to all active FY19 and FY20 NEA grant awards; and, allowing current grantees to re-allocate funding for general operating support to address COVID-19 economic losses. Enable national nonprofit organizations to subgrant federal arts funds to support community-based arts and culture organizations, agencies, and artists to assist in efficiently supporting the nation’s cultural infrastructure and workforce. 

• Enact policies to ensure rapid processing of artist visas by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and consulates to shield U.S.-based arts petitioners from the delays and costs of reprogramming international events. 

The arts and the work of artists are integral to reimagining and reopening public gathering places and work spaces. Federal policy should support the arts in safety and infrastructure policies that guide the ways we bring people together: 

• Support the arts and work of artists as essential infrastructure investments. Building a strong cultural infrastructure, creating art that enriches our lives, and using arts-based approaches to public works and community development initiatives will leave a legacy that defines our society for generations to come. 

• Provide eligibility for arts facilities in infrastructure investments to renovate, refurbish, and adapt to post-COVID-19 public health protocols. 

• Include the arts sector in consideration of public health and workplace safety policies to protect the health of arts workers, support the needs of arts venues, and ensure public confidence in gathering again. 

• Ensure the arts are considered in business interruption insurance and liability policy discussions, as the policy outcomes of both areas will influence the near-term reopening plans and the long-term viability of American arts and cultural organizations. 

According to an Americans for the Arts study on the economic losses to the arts as a result of COVID-19, nonprofit arts organizations have, to date, registered an estimated $5.5 billion in financial losses. In addition, nonprofit arts organizations have lost 197 million event admissions, which has resulted in a loss of $6.2 billion in event-related spending by audiences. Arts organizations, artists, and the broader arts workforce are vital contributors to the nonprofit sector, are essential to the economy, vitality, and wellbeing of the communities they serve, and they must be supported by all forms of relief. 

*Full list of signatories can be found here.*