Community Renewal Good Stories - New York City

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A New Northern Manhattan Arts Service Organization is Created

New York, New York, EZ

"Growing and harvesting community cultural assets are key components to economic development.   To this end, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), through its Cultural Industry Investment Fund, partnered with the Hispanic Federation, allocating one grant in 2007 and a second grant in 2008 totaling $1 million dollars to establish and incubate the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), an Arts Service Organization.

NoMAA with UMEZ's funding provides education, advocacy, financial and technical support to artists and arts organizations in the Washington Heights and Inwood arts and culture community. In addition, NoMAA plays a vital role enabling artists and arts organizations to expand beyond the Washington Heights and Inwood communities.

NoMAA launched its grants program for arts/cultural organizations, with grants ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 to support organizational capacity building projects such as staff development, technology, marketing, legal, fund development, strategic planning, organizational assessment and board development. 

NoMAA has awarded 95 grants totaling $100,000 from December 2007 to February 2009.  A total of 76 grants have been given to individual artists and 19 to arts and culture organizations.   Since 2007, NoMAA has been serving and promoting the works of artists in the Washington Heights and the Inwood communities as well as developing partnerships with businesses and other organizations to increase the visibility of this area of Manhattan. NoMAA has entered its third grants cycle, and in December 2009 will award a total of $60,000 to arts organizations and individual artists. 

In June 2008, NoMAA began producing the Uptown Arts Stroll, Northern Manhattan's six-year-old annual festival of performing and visual arts.

For additional information on the programs and projects in the Upper Manhattan area in the New York EZ, contact Director of Communications Charles Walker, UMEZ at 212-410-0030.