Grant Applications Open For Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Music Relief Fund

As reported, organizers of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival created the Hardly Strictly Music Relief Fund: Bay Area to help musicians and venues in the Bay Area get through the COVID-19 pandemic. The application period for grants is now open with the application and guidelines available here.

The fund is a $1.5 million charitable effort that “seeks to recognize, appreciate, and care for the people who lend their creativity, heart, and hard work to the American roots music ecosystem in the Bay Area” and includes $450,000 for individual musicians’ relief as well as additional support for local music venues and their employees. Roots musicians living full time San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo or Sonoma Counties are eligible for grants. Applications must be received by September 14 at 5 p.m. PT with notifications to follow by September 25 before the funds are dispursed.

“Our fund for roots music musicians, in the form of grants up to $2,000 in unrestricted funds, is available to all but will give priority to Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color,” explained Frances Hellman, one of the directors of the Hellman Foundation. “This is not only because these communities have been historically under-funded by philanthropy, but also because they have been adversely affected by the pandemic.” The Alliance for California Traditional Arts and the Center for Cultural Innovation will administer the fund.