By Sean P. Ray | Managing Editor

ALLEGHENY CITY CENTRAL — City of Asylum, the Northside-based nonprofit that provides assistance to exiled writers, was among many arts organizations nationwide to have funding pulled by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in May.

In an email sent out on May 5, City of Asylum said NEA rescinded $35,000 in funding which was planned for the organization’s Jazz Poetry Month, which it holds every May. According to the non-profit, this represents 30% of the funding for the event. City of Asylum received notice of the rescission in an email on May 2.

Leigh Frank, director of development and communications for City of Asylum, said the rescission was “disappointing” but not entirely surprising for the organization.

“I think, given what was happening with museums and libraries, given that the proposed federal budget was sort of zeroing out the NEA, I wouldn’t say it was a complete shock,” Frank said.

President Donald Trump called for the elimination of the NEA in his proposed budget, released on May 2. According to an article by the Associated Press released on May 5, multiple arts organizations had NEA grants denied to them following the budget’s release.

Frank said City of Asylum is working to fill in the gap left by the loss of NEA funding.

“We’re doing a lot of research on other foundations that might fund organizations with missions like ours,” she said, further mentioning that they have sent out appeals to individual donors to lend support.

The organization was still able to hold Jazz Poetry Month during May, and Frank said the non-profit hopes to still be able to hold its schedule of programming through the rest of the year. However, she fears that the NEA recission might be the start of difficult financial times for non-profit organizations.

“This is the type of thing that I think is going to have a ripple effect,” she said. “It might not just be one grant. It might be a slightly longer cycle of seeing this funding diminished.”