Hockaday Museum gets stimulus money
The Daily Inter Lake
Grant will help pay for director
The Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell will get federal stimulus money to restore partial funding for its executive director position.
The money comes from American Recovery and Reinvestment in the Arts funding from the Montana Arts Council, passed onto the state through the National Endowment for the Arts' federal economic stimulus funding.
The Hockaday will use the one-year grant of $19,535 to partially restore funding for the executive director/curator position - which is currently vacant - and allow interim director Lucy Smith to return to her former position as development director for the Hockaday, according to a press release from the Montana Arts Council.
Tabby Ivy, president of the Hockaday's board of directors, said the grant will allow the nonprofit organization to raise the director's salary to a level that will help attract experienced candidates.
"We're very happy," Ivy said. "These grants help boost you up so you can move forward and then make it on your own."
The Hockaday's mission is to enrich the cultural life of the Kalispell regional community and preserve the artistic legacy of Montana and Glacier National Park. Its permanent and traveling exhibitions, special events, classes, artist workshops, school outreach and volunteer programs impact more than 18,500 visitors and students annually.
The museum's extensive community outreach efforts put it among the winning art organizations.
A total of $241,000 was split among 13 Montana arts organizations. In addition to putting Montanans to work in the arts, the money also may be used to pay fees for previously engaged artists and/or other independent contractors to maintain the period during which they would have been engaged were it not for the economic climate.
The total work-force impact of this funding for Montana will help restore 193 contracted personnel and partially restore 19 positions, equaling 8.6 full-time equivalent employees.
"Montana has a national reputation as being 'The Land of Creativity,'" said Arni Fishbaugh, executive director of the state arts council. "The arts have a significant impact on Montana's economy."
In 2003, the council sponsored a study of the tax-exempt arts organizations throughout the state that showed an economic impact of $83 million per year, producing close to 2,000 full-time jobs annually. Montana's nonprofit arts organizations, as an economic sector, have a greater employment impact than one-quarter of the state's top 100 industries.