Tell Florida: Make Arts & Cultural Grant Funding Fair, Statewide & Transparent
563 eligible applications. 187 funded. Floridians deserve to know how those decisions were made.

Florida's General Program Support grant program exists to support arts and cultural organizations across our state; organizations providing theatre, music, dance, museums, arts education, cultural programming and other services to Florida communities.

For Fiscal Year 2026–27, 563 eligible organizations applied for nearly $52 million in General Program Support funding.

The State of Florida ultimately appropriated $20 million to 187 applicants.

That means hundreds of eligible Florida organizations received nothing.

We understand that $20 million cannot satisfy nearly $52 million in requests. This petition is not asking Florida to fully fund every organization that applies.

We are asking Floridians a much simpler question:

Should the public be able to understand how those funding decisions were made?
The grant process includes a public evaluation process in which eligible applications are reviewed and scored. Those recommendations move through the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and ultimately to the Secretary of State and the state budget process.

But after organizations spent countless hours preparing applications and participated in that public evaluation process, a much smaller group ultimately received funding.

The final FY 2026–27 awards were published in two separate funding lists.

Florida's arts organizations — and the taxpayers funding this program — deserve a clear explanation of the criteria used to determine which eligible applicants ultimately appeared on those lists.

We saw this firsthand in Pasco County.
HappyStars Youth Program Inc. operating as Center Stage Youth Theatre, submitted an eligible General Program Support application.

Our application received a 92.5 out of 100 through the state's evaluation process.

We requested $33,000.

We received $0.

But this isn't simply about Center Stage receiving $0.

It's about whether Floridians can understand what happened after the applications were scored.

Organizations with lower scores received funding while our application did not. And Pasco County, despite having an eligible applicant, received no General Program Support funding.

We are not arguing that another Florida arts organization did not deserve its award.

We are asking what criteria determined who did.

We are asking the Florida Department of State and Florida's elected leaders to:
1 - Publish a clear explanation of the criteria and methodology used to determine the final FY 2026–27 General Program Support funding selections.
2 - Release sufficient records for the public to understand how the eligible and scored applicant pool became the final funded lists.
3 -Clearly establish and publish the criteria that will govern final funding selections in future grant cycles before organizations invest their time and resources applying.
4 - Ensure that a statewide arts and cultural funding program provides meaningful opportunity for communities throughout Florida.

This isn't about guaranteeing anyone a grant.

It isn't about taking funding away from organizations that received it.

And it isn't about demanding that Florida simply fund applications from highest score to lowest score.

It's about transparency.

If factors other than application scores determine which organizations ultimately receive public funding, applicants and taxpayers should be able to understand what those factors are.

Florida's arts organizations invest enormous amounts of time preparing these applications. Their boards, employees, volunteers, artists, educators, families and communities deserve to know the rules of the process.

And Florida taxpayers deserve to understand how $20 million in public funding was distributed.

Add your name.
Ask the State of Florida to make its arts and cultural grant funding process transparent, understandable and accountable to the communities it is intended to serve.

563 eligible applications. 187 funded.

Tell us how the decisions were made.