By Cole Gee | Staff Writer
Whether you’re a painter from the Italian Renaissance or a modern day playwright from Texas, one thing remains true in the art world –– that money makes the world go ’round.
For many artists and organizations today, their benefactor isn’t a rich nobleman but the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA is an organization that provides financial grants to artists to help support creative endeavors and education. The work NEA does goes far beyond just financial support; they’re also a resource and education center on the importance of the arts for the public.
With recent changes to the board and grant applications due to anti-DEI sentiment, many artists are worried about the direction the organization and art in general is taking across the country.
The new requirements for the NEA grants now have strict rules against promoting “DEI” and “gender ideology.” This has also led to the cancellation of its “Challenge America” program for the 2026 fiscal year. The program would have offered $2.8 million to “underserved groups and communities that may have limited access to the arts relative to geography, ethnicity, economic status and/or disability.”
These moves paint a picture of a new national art world under the new Trump administration. Trump instead encourages artists to apply for the America250 grants, which look to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding.
While many major art programs are sure to feel the brunt of these changes, some of the more vulnerable programs are at the state and local levels. The programs in Waco that rely directly on NEA grant funding may have no choice but to adapt for the future. In the case of Waco Civic Theatre, that means uplifting local Waco voices and sticking true to their core values.
“When it comes to the recent decisions, I think it’s throwing a lot of theaters through a loop because we have all been working really hard to focus on this important issue of diversity, equity and inclusion so that the same stories are not always told in the exact same way.” said Kelly MacGregor, executive director of the Waco Civic Theatre. “We are using members of our community, marginalized groups, and people who haven’t historically had a voice and now are supported in sharing that voice.
MacGregor joined the Waco Civic Theatre in 2023 after the theater experienced a turbulent time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The theater has slowly returned to its storytelling roots. These roots, according to MacGregor, are the fundamental reason why community theater is vital to the people of Waco.
“In this particular organization, all we do is storytelling,” MacGregor said. “We share event after event all year round and we just tell stories. We tell stories of the human race and of the human condition. So it’s just so important because it helps us connect to one another as people.”
When it comes to funding, many local theaters rely on grants and community donations to survive. The recent changes to grant applications puts an already vulnerable art program in even more jeopardy.
“Theaters in general, community theaters, nonprofit theaters like we are rely on grants in order to maintain our operations,” MacGregor said. “Your ticket sales should really be less than 25% of your operating budget, so you do rely on grants from the government, you do rely on grants from local foundations, you rely on donors, sponsors and individuals to give towards the local community theater nonprofit.”
One of these local foundations is Creative Waco, a local non-profit dedicated to uplifting Waco’s creative voices. The organization is run in part by CEO Fiona Bond, and many of the organization’s various projects are funded by NEA grants. Currently, Waco is the only small Texas city with a population under 500,000 to receive an NEA grant for a total of $250,000.
They used this money to help fund the dozens of murals that are painted throughout downtown Waco, which were painted by local high school students.
“The main portfolio of grants that we’ve had from the NEA supports our art apprenticeship program,” Bond said. “[This] consists of high school students where 80% of them are the first in their families to consider postgrad school education.”
Many of these ultra-talented artists would not even know their true potential without the programs funded by Creative Waco’s NEA grants. Many organization leaders like Bond believe it’s more important now than ever to stay true to their values.
“The reality is that we don’t stop doing the right thing just because that’s not what is being funded,” Bond said. “So we don’t change the nature of the arts because of the lens through which the funding is shown. So we will go on doing what we believe is important. Our core values as an organization will not change no matter how the funding scenario and the funding portfolio changes.”
Bond and many creative organizations across the country take offense to the idea of limiting artistic freedom to get funding. In her own words, the impact of the arts goes far beyond what you see on a stage or art gallery.
“The arts have a unique capacity for connecting us as humans for dismantling some of the things that divide us, while also creating opportunities for people who would not otherwise have opportunities and a voice for people who would not otherwise have a voice,” Bond said.
