Posted August 7, 2024
Moody Fund for the Arts Distributes $450,000 in Funding to Dallas Arts Organizations
(DALLAS) — Today, the Moody Fund for the Arts (MFA) announced it is awarding grants to 59 Dallas arts organizations. The grants, which range from $3,000 to $12,000 support groups representing a broad cross-section of small, emerging and ethnic arts organizations across numerous art forms including theatre, music, dance, visual arts, film, multimedia and more. Many of the programs provide cultural programs to historic under-served communities in Dallas, and seven of the recipients were new applicants for MFA grants.
“When we created the Moody Fund for the Arts in 2017, our vision was to support – in perpetuity – the diverse range of small arts organizations in Dallas,” said Moody Foundation Chairman Francie Moody-Dahlberg. “It’s especially impressive to see so many new groups applying for grants and receiving them. That’s an exciting sign of all the cultural growth this is bringing to Dallas.”
2024 marks the 7th year of MFA grantmaking. Since its first awards in 2018, MFA has awarded a total of $2,380,000 through 362 unique grants to 99 organizations. MFA recipients must be based in Dallas, have budgets under $1M and are supported by the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture (OAC).
These grant funds supplement the investment that comes from the city of Dallas each year,” said Martine Elyse Phillipe, OAC Director and a member of the MFA Executive Review Committee. “This helps ensure that Dallas continues to have a diverse and vibrant arts scene providing equitable access to cultural experiences for years to come.”
The fund awards flexible grants within five categories. This year saw entries in each category: General Program and Operating Cost Support (38); New Works, Commissions, and Unique Presentations (11); Community Focus Performances/Artist-in-Residency Programs (4); Cultural Equity, New Initiatives (2); Capacity Building (4).
Moody Fund Recipients:
- Agora Artists
- American Baroque Opera Company
- Art House Dallas
- Arts Mission Oak Cliff
- Artstillery
- Arttitude
- Avant Chamber Ballet
- MOORE DANCE
- Ballet North Texas
- Basically Beethoven
- Beckles Dancing Company
- Bombshell Dance Project
- Color Me Empowered
- Dallas Arts District
- Dallas Chamber Symphony
- Dallas International Film Festival
- Dallas Metroplex Musicians’ Association
- Dance Council of North Texas
- DFW Play
- Echo Theatre
- Emerge Coalition, Inc.
- Flamenco Fever
- Greater Dallas Choral Society
- Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra
- Indian Cultural Heritage Foundation
- Indique Dance Company
- Kitchen Dog Theater Company
- kNOwBOX dance
- Lone Star Wind Orchestra
- Lyric Stage
- New Texas Symphony Orchestra
- Oak Cliff Society of Fine Arts
- Ollimpaxqui Ballet Co
- Orchestra of New Spain
- Orpheus Chamber Singers
- OutLoud Dallas
- Over the Bridge Arts
- Pegasus Contemporary Ballet
- Pegasus Media Project
- Prism Movement Theater
- Sammons Center for the Arts
- Second Thought Theatre
- Soul Rep Theatre Company
- South Dallas Concert Choir
- SPARK! Dallas
- Swan Strings
- Teatro Dallas
- Texas Winds Musical Outreach
- The Artist Outreach
- The HighArt Foundation
- The No Limits Arts Theatre
- The Writer’s Garret
- Theatre Three
- Undermain Theatre
- Uptown Players
- Urban Arts Collective
- USA Film Festival
- Verdigris Ensemble
- Watering Hole Collective
The AT&T Performing Arts Center administers the fund and its application and review process. Award decisions are made through a two-level review process. The first level, the MFA Advisory Review Panel is a peer-review judging process. The second level of review is provided by the MFA Executive Review Committee.
2024 MFA Advisory Review Panel
- Mickie Bragalone – Arts and Cultural Advisory Commission Member, Place 9, retired attorney, arts patron and advocate
- Sierra Noelle Jones – Dancer and teacher at Dallas Black Dance Theatre – 7 years as Company Artist and 2 years with DBDT! Encore
- Terry Martin – Acting teacher, Head of Fine Arts at Greenhill School and former Producing Artistic Director of WaterTower Theatre
- Jaquain Sloan – Musician and teacher – Dallas Symphony Orchestra, bassoon
- Cynthia Santiago – Actor, filmmaker, ballet dancer
2024 Executive Review Committee
- Stephen Gilhooly – Arts patron, advocate, business and transactional attorney
- Tracey Nash-Huntley – Arts patron, advocate, philanthropist
- Martine Elyse Phillipe – City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, Director
For more information on the Moody Fund for the Arts please visit: www.moodyartsfund.org.
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PRESS INQUIRIES:
Chris Heinbaugh, Chief Advocacy Officer
AT&T Performing Arts Center
214-507-1460
Chris.Heinbaugh@attpac.org
ABOUT THE MOODY FUND FOR THE ARTS:
The Moody Fund for the Arts (MFA) aspires to be a transformative fund that will raise the scope of engagement with the arts throughout the Dallas community. Through flexible grant making, MFA encourages enterprising and diverse cultural offerings and helps sustain the mission of Moody Performance Hall to provide a stage in the Dallas Arts District for small and mid-sized groups.
In 2017, the Galveston, Texas-based Moody Foundation created and endowed the $10 million Moody Fund for the Arts to provide support for small and emerging nonprofit arts organizations supported by the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture. In recognition of the generosity of the Moody Foundation, on May 24, 2017 the City of Dallas changed the name of its 750-seat Dallas City Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District to Moody Performance Hall.
To qualify, an organization’s budget must be less than $1 million. Through an annual competitive process, the $10 million endowment provides flexible grants supporting a range of opportunities, including new works and commissions, general operating and rent support, capacity building, projects taking art into under-served areas, cultural equity programs and more.
Grant recipients are chosen through a multi-level process including a peer review panel. MFA’s first grants were awarded in 2018.
- 2018 $150,000 36 organizations $7,500 max grant
- 2019 $175,000 47 organizations $7,500 max grant
- 2020 $355,000 49 organizations $10,000 max grant
- 2021 $400,000 54 organizations $10,000 max grant
- 2022 $450,000 52 organizations $12,000 max grant
- 2023 $400,000 66 organizations $12,000 max grant
- 2024 $450,000 59 organizations $12,000 max grant
The Moody Fund for the Arts is held within the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) Endowment, a Texas nonprofit corporation. Oversight is provided by the DCPA Endowment Board of Governors. The nonprofit AT&T Performing Arts Center provides staff support to administer the fund and granting process. Learn more at www.moodyartsfund.org.
ABOUT THE MOODY FOUNDATION:
The Moody Foundation was established in 1942 by William L. Moody Jr. and his wife, Libbie Rice Shearn Moody to share their good fortune and make a difference in the lives of the people of Texas. Since then, the Moody Foundation has made more than $1.5 billion in grants throughout the state to organizations that have educated, healed, nurtured and inspired generations of Texans. Learn more at www.moodyf.org.