At 6 pm today, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance interim Executive Director Michael Norris will be testifying at a City Council budget hearing in an effort to increase the budget for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund (PCF) to its 2010 level of $3.2 million. 

GroundSwell (an initiative of the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance) is asking people to help pack City Council’s chambers for the budget hearing tonight in support of restoring funding to the arts. Norris will also present a petition, signed by 2000 arts supporters, to restore PCF funding.

In 2010, Mayor Michael Nutter made significant budget cuts due to the recession. The result was decreased funding to PCF, Parks and Recreation and the Free Library. However, while both the Free Library and Parks and Recreation have seen the partial restoration of their budgets, the PCF has not. PCF is still operating at a budget of $1.84 million, and in 2014 distributed $1.6 million in grants to 272 organizations.

An increase in the PCF budget would be used to to increase the size and number of the grants, according to GroundSwell. In addition, PCF has pledged to restore the Youth Arts Enrichment Grants, which provide project support for arts-education programs serving K-12 students in the Philadelphia School District.

GroundSwell is also asking people to participate in Philadelphia Arts Advocacy day by:

• Tweeting today with messages of how you and/or your organization are impacted by the arts in Philadelphia using  #RestoreArtsFundingPHL
• Tweet at Council President Clarke @Darrell_Clarke & at your own City Councilmember to #RestoreArtsFundingPHL
• Ask your followers to tweet about how the arts in Philadelphia impact their lives using  #RestoreArtsFundingPHL
• Retweet some of your favorite responses
• Follow @GroundSwell_PA and @PhilaCulturalFund as we live-tweet the public budget hearing testimony tonight
• Tweet at the list of City Council members on Twitter asking them to support the arts. 

Generocity previously covered the Great Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s analysis of the FY15 budget here: generocity.org/philadelphia-cultural-alliance-analysis-of-the-2015-budget/.

Learn more about the budget and Philadelphia Arts Advocacy Day at philaculture.org/groundswell/restoreartsfundingphl-social-media-campaign-philadelphia-arts-advocacy-da.

(Image via Flickr User micronova)