After two years of hearings and legislative advocacy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the Texas Commission on the Arts 2020-21 budget into law on June 15. The budget adds $250,000 for Exceptional Item #3—Arts Healing Grants for Active Service Members and Veterans to be administered under the state Arts Respond program.

The National Endowment for the Arts has launched the next phase of Creative Forces® by funding Community Connections Projects at ten of its clinical sites to develop site specific community-based arts programs that will use the creative and healing benefits of the arts to promote health and wellness for the military community.

Americans for the Arts president and CEO Robert L. Lynch issued a statement in response to Elisabeth P. “Betsy” DeVos’s confirmation as U.S. Secretary of Education. 

Americans for the Arts president and CEO Robert L. Lynch issued a statement in response to the Trump Administration’s proposed elimination of FY2018 funding to the National Endowment for the Arts. 

From December 2 to 8, 2018, the initiative encourages the creative field to join together in communities across the country to promote the sales of the work of local artists, and to promote to all consumers that art—including tickets to events and organization memberships—makes great holiday gifts.

Today, Americans for the Arts unveiled the Arts + Social Impact Explorer, an interactive online tool that draws together more than 1,000 data points on how the arts impact and integrate into 26 different sectors ranging from education and innovation, to health and wellness, immigration, faith and environment. The tool provides quick top-line research, example projects, core research papers, and lists service and partner organizations doing this work, as well as provides printable PDF fact sheets to share with decisionmakers.

"The Falling and the Rising" is a new American opera based on the true stories of dozens of active duty soldiers and veterans at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, The Old Guard at Fort Myer, and Fort Meade, Maryland. The opera chronicles the imagined journey inside the mind of a soldier following traumatic brain injuries suffered during a roadside attack, and was first proposed by a tenor in the Soldiers’ Chorus, Staff Sgt. Ben Hilgert.

Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert L. Lynch released a statement following the release of the Trump Administration’s proposed FY2019 budget.