Through the Office of Cultural Affairs, the City of San José offers several programs of financial support to ensure a continuing and rich variety of cultural opportunities for its residents as well as visitors to the city.
Donor Name: City of San José
State: California
City: San José
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 02/13/2026
Size of the Grant: Not Available
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
The City of San José awards Operating Grants (OpG) to a limited number of professionally-managed San Jose arts/cultural organizations with ongoing, year-round arts programming. The grant supports general operating need
The Operating Grants (OpG) provide essentially unrestricted financial support for selected San José arts and culture organizations at various stages of development. OpG levels are designed to result generally in a decreasing proportion of City cultural funding as organizations’ budgets grow. In all cases, OpG support represents a small fraction of a grantee’s finances.
Goals
Operating Grants are intended to support the following general goals:
- A sustainable community of stable, debt-free arts and culture organizations that are responsibly governed, well managed, and adequately housed providing a large and diverse number of opportunities for residents and visitors to enjoy exhibits, performances, and other arts activities, employing professionals to achieve high standards of artistic quality;
- Enriched arts and cultural literacy among residents of all ages through arts education and outreach and opportunities for personal artistic expression and participation;
- Broad-based, community-wide participation in the arts resulting from a diversity of programming with accessibility to all people, regardless of income, background, and abilities.
Eligibility Criteria
Interested applicant organizations must be able to meet all the following eligibility requirements at the time of application for their grant applications to be considered.
Mission and Program
- The organization’s mission must be focused on the arts.
- Exception: An organization whose mission explicitly includes the arts as a principal part of a multi-faceted mission can be eligible if it can document through an independent audit that at least one-third of the organization’s annual operating expenses are spent on the direct cost of providing arts programs and activities. Organizations are strongly encouraged to consult with program staff far in advance of the application deadline to confirm their eligibility.
- The organization must have conducted a majority of its arts programs in San José for at least the three years preceding the start of the funding period in the application.
- The organization must provide its plans for offering a program of arts activities to the public in San José venues during the period for which it is seeking grant support.
- The organization must operate and offer its arts programs in a non-discriminatory manner and in compliance with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, laws protecting persons with disabilities.
Corporate and Governance
- The applicant organization must be a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public benefit corporation in good standing at the time of application.
- The applicant organization must have a governing body of at least five persons, a majority of whom must not be employees, the immediate family or spouses/domestic partners of employees of the organization.
- The applicant organization must be based in San José as evidenced by its legal, administrative and program headquarters in San José.
Finance and Grant History
- Operating revenues and expenditures of at least $50,000, not including in-kind support, in its three most recently completed fiscal years.
- If the arts are not the entire focus of the organization’s mission, then the $50,000 annual requirement above applies to its expenditures on the direct cost of its arts programs (i.e., exclusive of administrative, general overhead and other costs not directly the result of arts programming.).
- Operating revenues and expenditures of at least $50,000, not including in-kind support, projected for its current fiscal year and the proposed grant period. (Note: Majority of grantees in this program have budgets in excess of $200,000.)
- The organization’s year-end Financial Reports must be done by a third-party accounting firm with no relation to the organization. Financial audits or reviews are expected for ALL organizations as outlined in the following section.
- The organization must comply with the requirements of any current and previous grants it has received through the Office of Cultural Affairs.
- The organization must not be receiving long-term loans from the City of San José.
For more information, visit City of San Jose.
