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On May 12, arts leaders and politicians gathered in the shiny new headquarters of All Classical Radio in downtown’s KOIN Tower as a show of force and community. It had been 10 days since the National Endowment for the Arts had pulled already-promised grants to 27 arts organizations across the state for an approximately $590,000 loss, seemingly at the behest of the Department of Government Efficiency, led by entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The shock had worn off, perhaps, but the fury had not. U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) began her remarks sharply.
“I’m here to say that Donald Trump and the unelected billionaire Elon Musk do not understand the value of arts and culture…and, in fact, are trying to censor opinions, and they do not understand the separation of powers our Founding Fathers embedded in the Constitution,” Bonamici said from the lectern. “We are here to say that we will not stand by as they attack Oregon’s arts community and culture community.”
Besides the anger, the other takeaway from the meeting was that the arts and culture community was taking this defunding personally.
Sankar Raman is president and founder of The Immigrant Story, a nonprofit organization that lost its NEA funding of $10,000 at 5:03 pm on Friday, May 2—“that’s three minutes into my happy hour,” Raman said wryly. The NEA told Raman that the award was terminated due to a new directive from President Donald Trump to prioritize projects that “reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity.”
“Apparently, with a name like The Immigrant Story, we don’t fit that version of American heritage,” Raman said. “We believed that when a federal agency says, ‘We support your work,’ we could trust that promise. And for us, this is more than financial—it is personal. It makes us ask, are our voices part of this American conversation?”
In the weeks since, the dust has far from settled. Portland’s arts organizations are two-thirds of the state’s creative sector reeling from the sudden loss of previously guaranteed funds. While some organizations like Oregon Humanities have moved forward on legal action (as previously reported by the Oregon Journalism Project), others are still putting together a game plan.
Trump and DOGE might be moving quickly, but leaders of artistic groups WW spoke with have pledged not to give up their causes or let it happen without a fight. Here’s how some of Portland’s arts organizations are responding:
My Voice Music was one of the first organizations that WW learned had NEA money stripped from their budgets. MVM—featured in our Give!Guide—provides music education and mentorship for young people ages 9–24 through programs such as rock camps, after-school songwriting and production classes, and music therapy and satellite programs in residential treatment centers and juvenile detention. More than two-thirds of MVM’s clients, many of whom are in foster care, receive scholarships to enroll.
Amy Sabin, MVM’s executive director, tells WW that the organization has lost $47,000—$12,000 from a 2024 award and $35,000 slated for this year’s budget. MVM completed the NEA’s appeal process to demonstrate how the organization meets the Trump administration’s new priorities, but has received no response yet.
“There absolutely will be an impact if we can’t figure out how to make up for this loss,” Sabin says. “Because of the abrupt nature of the situation and the incredibly busy time of year for us, we haven’t determined whether or not legal action is realistic. But I can say as a small arts organization, it doesn’t feel very realistic.”
The $10,000 Orchestra Nova Northwest was recommended to receive would have gone to support a peace concert series staged in Troutdale and Beaverton featuring around 140 musicians and singers. Executive director Kevin Irving says ONN staff found no grounds on which to appeal the NEA’s decision under Trump’s new priorities, and that while the $10,000 accounts for less than 2% of the organization’s budget, “every penny matters!”
The news arrives amid ONN’s ongoing fundraising efforts, forcing the organization to change its goals midway through its campaign from $200,000 to $210,000, Irving says. “Moving the goalposts [and] changing the rules of the game midway through the process has had an extremely detrimental effect on our orchestra,” he says.
All Classical Radio was set to receive $20,000 to support musicians’ use of the radio station’s media arts and production spaces. After the May 12 press conference with Congresswoman Bonamici, ACR further pledged airtime to other arts organizations affected by DOGE cuts to share about their impacted programs.
“As the largest and most accessible megaphone for music, arts, and culture in the region, All Classical Radio is uniquely positioned to connect and uplift arts organizations,” ACR’s statement to WW reads.
The Immigrant Story decided to move forward with its May 24 event I Am an American Live at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, even though its NEA grant was supposed to cover 21% of its cost. The organization relied on donations and dipping into its reserves to pull off the performance.
The $15,000 Milagro Theatre had been awarded by NEA’s Grants for Artists project for its production of a home what howls (or the house what was ravine)—Matthew Paul Olmos’ play about a woman’s fight for her right to live on her family’s land—was quickly made up by support from its donor pool.
“We will be OK, thanks to a community that supports Latino arts and culture,” says Dañel Malán-González, Milagro’s executive director.
Portland Playhouse sounded the alarm early on after losing $25,000 on the eve of opening night of its production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Though still not in a position to lead the charge against the NEA, the theater company has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise more than a half-million dollars for all of Oregon’s affected cultural institutions (1% of the goal had been raised by press time).
“We want to take the NEA and the government back,” Brian Weaver, Portland Playhouse’s co-founder and producing artistic director, tells WW. “It belongs to us, not Trump.”
Organizers for Risk/Reward, the annual festival for new and experimental theater, appealed the NEA’s revocation on the grounds that its $10,000 award—which represents between 12% and 17% of the festival’s annual budget—would provide trade jobs to skilled laborers as Trump prioritizes. Risk/Reward managing director Liam Kaas-Lentz says organizers dipped into reserves to cover the loss, but will plan for future DOGE disruptions going forward.
“This is obviously not a one-year problem,” Kaas-Lentz says. “We want to create a ‘buffer against tyranny’ budget that helps pad the festival in the future.”