Video History Project

Chronology

Creative Artists Public Service Program

Date
1982

Creative Artists Public Service Program, Isabelle Fernandez, Director, decides to go to alternate year funding for the fellowship categories, in response to NYSCA requests that the program become more cost effective. CAPS indicates that more awards will be made, with the savings from the administrative cost cuts, but that the funding level of the fellowships would remain the same. In 1981 32% of the CAPS budget was disbursed for administration.

The State Council members ordered a ceiling of such expenses of 20%, in response. NYSCA also requested that CAPS secure outside funding for the overall program. CAPS was unable to find a mandated matching funds source.

Isabelle Fernandez, Director of CAPS, indicated that CAPS had originally been told by NYSCA not to engage in outside fundraising, because it would mean direct competition for funding with other media organizations; she also indicated that NYSCA had changed this position, culminating in the matching funds requirement. Fernandez also indicated that CAPS was perceived as a public funding agency, making it difficult to secure private support, and that private support was very difficult to find for artists' fellowships. NYSCA's position was that CAPS had been encouraged to secure outside support.

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"Creative Artists Public Service Program." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/creative-artists-public-service-program-2.

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Summary

Isabelle Fernandez, director of the Creative Artists Public Service Program (CAPS), decided to move fellowship categories to alternate-year funding in response to NYSCA requests for greater cost-effectiveness; CAPS planned to increase the number of awards using savings from administrative cost cuts while maintaining fellowship funding levels. In 1981 CAPS disbursed 32% of its budget for administration, prompting State Council members to cap such expenses at 20%; NYSCA requested outside funding and a matching funds requirement that CAPS was unable to meet. Fernandez reported NYSCA initially discouraged outside fundraising to avoid competition with other media organizations, then later reversed that stance, and noted private support for artists' fellowships was difficult to obtain.

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Last modified 16 May 2011

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  • Creative Artists Public Service Program Chronology

    Creative Artists Public Service Program (CAPS) rejected a New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) offer to reassign and share administration of selected fellowships with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). In 1983–84 CAPS awarded fellowships where funding had been committed: choreography, fiction, film, multi-media, screenwriting/playwriting and video; for 1984–85 NYSCA increased overall fellowship support to $1.1 million and proposed NYFA administer architecture, crafts, film, video, fiction, poetry, choreography, music composition and playwriting while CAPS would administer photography, painting, graphics, sculpture and multi‑media. Under Isabelle Fernandez CAPS resisted NYSCA urgings to increase outside fundraising, add a crafts fellowship and contain administrative costs.

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