Ted Berger

In the spirit of serving our nation’s artists, cultural workers, and arts and culture organizations — as well as the funders that seek to support them during emergencies in general and during the current coronavirus crisis in particular — NCAPER has articulated the guiding principles we have learned over the past fourteen years. Based on the combined experience of the members of NCAPER’s Steering Committee, these principles have evolved from responding to individual and large-scale emergencies in the arts and cultural sector every single day for over a decade.

This time it was the catastrophic devastation in the Gulf States. Last time it was the 9/11 attack. Before that were the floods in North Dakota, the earthquakes in San Francisco and Seattle, and Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, and then

Each time disaster strikes — whether natural or man made — communities face inestimable emotional and economic suffering. When artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions are affected by these disasters, the confusion and bewilderment about what to do and how to help extends very directly to us as arts grantmakers.