September 16, 2009 - Salem, ORE. October is National Arts & Humanities Month and October 8th marks the anniversary of Oregon's unique cultural tax credit. The Cultural Trust created Oregon Day of Culture to celebrate all that culture brings us every day, in every community. Last year, the Trust organized public celebrations with performances, proclamations, speeches and cultural information fairs in eight cities across Oregon. This year, the Trust has created a website, www.oregondayofculture.org, that features a searchable database of hundreds of public and private events, statewide.
That website launches today and includes a registration form to post cultural events and activities taking place from October 1-8. The registration form automatically populates a database, allowing users to "find your event" anywhere in Oregon. Citizens can search by date; location; and event type: performance, reading, community gathering, and public or private. A private event could include a group hike on a heritage trail, a book club meeting, or a house party to raise awareness and funds for culture. Anyone can post to the website; registration closes at the close of business on Friday, September 25. A google map on the site helps Oregonians and visitors to join the celebration at hundreds of Oregon Day of Culture events.
Oregon Day of Culture invites Oregonians to consider the value of culture when checking out a book at the library, researching family history at the historical society, volunteering to preserve a historic building, listening to an author reading, assisting at a children's art class, practicing an instrument, or attending a performance. Oregon Day of Culture, www.oregondayofculture.org makes it easy to Celebrate! Participate! Give! in support of the intricate tapestry of heritage, humanities and arts that is Oregon culture, every day.
Those who Give! by:
- pledging to public broadcasters;
- joining museums, historical societies or art centers;
- or donating to education and library foundations or performing arts nonprofits
can match those gifts with a contribution to the Cultural Trust and earn a tax credit that reduces their Oregon taxes by the full amount of their Trust gift. In the process, Oregon citizens create statewide funding for cultural programs. A searchable database of the more than 1,200 heritage, humanities and arts nonprofits that participate in the Trust's innovative fundraising and grantmaking program can be found at www.culturaltrust.org.
No other state in the nation has a fundraising and grantmaking program like the Oregon Cultural Trust. It's been ranked with the bottle bill and vote by mail as among Oregon's most forward-thinking public policy measures.
Money donated to the Cultural Trust returns to the community in grants that benefit 1,200 arts, heritage and humanities nonprofits in every county. In seven years of grantmaking, the Cultural Trust has distributed more than $8 million in grants, most recently $1.45 million for 2009-10.
The Oregon Cultural Trust is an innovative, statewide private-public program that raises money to support and protect Oregon's arts, humanities and heritage. In addition to creating a long-term, protected endowment, the Trust distributes funds annually through three multi-faceted, wide-ranging grant programs. Donors to the Trust are eligible for a 100-percent Oregon income tax credit for contributions of up to $500 for individuals, $1,000 for couples filing jointly and $2,500 for corporations. To motivate Oregonians to increase direct giving to cultural groups, Trust donors must also make matching gifts to one or more of 1,200 cultural nonprofits in order to claim the tax credit. Thirteen thousand five hundred (13,500) donors have contributed over $17 million to the Cultural Trust and more than $8 million has been distributed in grants since Oregon's cultural tax credit took effect in December 2002. More information: 503-986-0088 or www.culturaltrust.org.