Nonprofits in Worcester accuse city of ‘blatant’ racial disparity in grant funding

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Worcester must decide by the end of the year how to spend the remaining $44.3 million in federal pandemic relief money. GBH reports. As that deadline approaches, some local nonprofit leaders are criticizing the city for unfairly distributing some of the money in previous grant rounds and urging officials to do better.

American Rescue Plan Act The money is intended to support economic recovery and address long-term challenges that particularly impact communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic. But some nonprofits and activists argue that Worcester uses most of the ARPA funds to maintain its existence. preferential treatment model From small Black and Brown-led groups to larger, well-funded organizations.

“This is not fair to the communities we serve,” said Sha-Asia Medina, executive director of The Village Worcester, a community center that highlights Black culture. “The city was given ample opportunity to solve the problem. It is not difficult.”

Medina and several other nonprofit leaders plan to submit a petition to the Worcester City Council demanding officials “use remaining ARPA funds for the communities for which they were originally intended.” Nonprofit leaders have repeatedly spoken with city leaders about what they describe as “obvious racial equity issues” during the funding process, but their concerns “continue to be ignored,” the petition says.

Inside an august noteWorcester City Manager Eric Batista responded to some criticism. He wrote that his administration is trying to use ARPA money to respond to “emerging and persistent needs in society.”

Since Worcester officials received $146 million in ARPA funding in 2021, they have earmarked most of the money for nonprofits. various problems Issues impacting underserved communities, from food insecurity to youth violence.

Some smaller nonprofits also provided large donations. For example, Jubilee Performing Arts Career Center, Received $227,000 grant in 2023 This helped the organization fund free after-school art and technology programs on the mobile classroom bus.

Still, critics say the majority of Worcester’s ARPA deployments are “business as usual.”

Batista said the city is enduring arts and culture funding decisions Larger grants – totaling nearly $3 million – are given to venues with more staff and lost revenue during the pandemic shutdown, in recognition of how much organizations have suffered during the pandemic. A few large organizations received the $125,000 maximum; that’s more than double that of smaller bands like The Village.

“Once again, the city got it wrong,” said Maydee Morales, a local equality and justice activist.

Activists note that the Worcester Museum of Art and Mechanics Hall are among the cultural groups receiving the largest donations, although both report millions of dollars. revenues And fundraising efforts. Hannover Theatre, EcoTarium and Mass Symphony Orchestra also received the maximum.

By comparison, the Worcester Caribbean American Carnival Association received $40,000 in the same round of donations. While the organization’s founder, Jennifer Gaskin, is grateful for the funding, she said organizations like hers deserve more money because they regularly work with underserved communities that have suffered the most during the pandemic. He added that a larger donation could be transformative for his organization, which has an annual budget of about $100,000.

“If I got $120,000, I could hire an executive director here to fundraise, engage the community and build our capacity,” he said. “We want to be able to have year-round programming” beyond our annual carnival.

Guillermo Creamer Jr., a local activist and former chairman of the Worcester Human Rights Commission, said small nonprofits can be especially effective when their leaders share the lived experiences of the people they work with. He said marginalized residents lose out when these groups can’t access adequate funding.

“The city needed to be more creative,” he said, “and I think creativity had to come with (the goal): ‘We want to make sure that this funding can change the direction of an organization that’s in operation, because that’s what this funding is for.”

The Worcester Museum of Art did not respond to a request for comment.

Troy Siebels, executive vice president and CEO of Hanover Theatre, said it’s appropriate for larger venues like his to receive more funding because they lost a lot of money when operations shut down during the pandemic and continue to struggle financially.

“The annual performance number is still not back to the pre-pandemic level,” Siebels said. “We appreciate the help.”

In his memo, Batista said the city is taking steps to ensure the ARPA process is fair, such as extending grant deadlines and working with organizations to correct errors in their applications. The city added that some smaller nonprofits’ grants actually amount to a higher proportion of their budgets than the money larger venues receive.

But many nonprofit leaders say that even if the city selects them for an ARPA grant, there’s no guarantee they’ll secure the money because the city imposes strict and burdensome requirements on them.

When Sha-Asia Medina and her mother, Parlee Jones, applied for ARPA funding for The Village in 2022, they saw it as an opportunity to repair their building and expand the nonprofit’s programming, which includes free reiki and yoga classes, cooking events and talent shows. .

But shortly after receiving an ARPA grant of over $100,000, they quickly realized that money came with obstacles. They say Worcester officials told them to pay for repairs to the building out of pocket and that the city would reimburse them in stages. But Medina and Jones don’t have the money to cover the expenses.

They say the city also required it to collect sensitive information from people taking The Village classes. Medina says one form asked for people’s addresses, whether they received food stamps or income-restricted benefits, and whether they were of different races.

Medina said she and her mother did not feel comfortable reporting this personal information to the city. They say they are considering giving up some of the grant money because of the strict requirements.

“Asking people to fill out these invasive forms and us having to send that information to City Hall, we haven’t found a way to do that without disrupting the energy of the space where people can kind of communicate and come in freely,” Medina said.

In an email, a Worcester spokesperson said the city follows federal requirements and organizations must meet certain eligibility requirements to receive advanced funding.

However, while most of the ARPA distribution process is left to local governments, The US Treasury Department clearly said Grantees have no choice in the method of payment.

David Thompson, acting CEO and vice president of the National Council of Nonprofits, said Worcester is making the same mistake as other communities across the country: they’re making the distribution process and subsequent requirements much stricter than the federal government’s requirements.

“The city chose safety over coup,” Thompson said. “It is easy to put money into established organizations that have public support, and it takes more time and perhaps more risk to put funds into smaller organizations that are innovating. “It is disappointing.”