A New Opportunity: Shield Seattle

Shield Seattle was created to protect Seattle communities from unprecedented federal funding cuts.

• In 2025, Seattle voters approved Shield Seattle with 71% support, creating nearly $85 million annually for the next seven years.
• The measure was specifically designed to help communities and sectors most affected by federal funding reductions, including unhoused residents, low-income families, immigrant communities, small businesses, vulnerable workers, and the arts and culture sector.
• We agree that the majority of funding should support needs like emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, and food access. But voters and the City Council were wise to include arts and culture under their umbrella of protection from Trump’s anti-progressive storm.

Seattle’s arts and culture sector is being targeted, and is experiencing exactly the kind of federal harm Shield Seattle was designed to address.

• The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) have canceled or rescinded grants to Seattle organizations, while the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been eliminated entirely.
• Local organizations have received notices stating their projects don’t align with new, anti-DEIA priorities, resulting in terminated awards and the loss of future funding opportunities.
• Seattle arts organizations have already lost an estimated $7.5 million in federal support, with additional losses expected as additional federal grant restrictions take effect.

Federal funding cuts are resulting in job losses and threatening essential community programs.

• More than 250 Seattle cultural workers have been laid off in the past eight months, with additional layoffs anticipated.
• Organizations continue to face rising operating costs while recovering from the pandemic, leaving many financially vulnerable despite returning audiences.
• Our organizations provide wide-reaching public benefits and social services – delivering programs that serve youth, seniors, immigrant communities, people experiencing homelessness, individuals in recovery, and other underserved populations.
• Arts funding directly supports community health and recovery – for example, Seattle’s Path with Art serves thousands of no- to low-income adults and families in recovery from various systemic traumas. They partner with more than 60 social service and public health organizations.

Investing in arts and culture is essential to Seattle’s economy and ongoing downtown revitalization.

• Shield Seattle funding could help backfill lost federal grants, stabilize arts and culture organizations, protect jobs, rehire cultural workers, and preserve community programs.
• Seattle’s creative workforce generates 18% of the city’s GDP – approximately four times the national average – and supports the restaurants, retailers, hotels, and small businesses that depend on a vibrant cultural sector.
• Protecting arts and culture fulfills the original promise of Shield Seattle by preserving the organizations, workers, and community services that make Seattle resilient and unique.