You want the full-qualified grant amount for your

organization's 2016-2017 Cultural and Museum grant -- right?

Invest some time and follow-up action now to help secure the hundreds or thousands of more dollars that your organization and others QUALIFY for under the Cultural and Museum Grants Program. Details and two actions steps are below. Please act now.

As of today, partial grant funding is recommended by the Florida Senate and House for your 2016-2017 Cultural and Museum Grant.

What is currently recommended for your 2016-2017
Cultural and Museum grant?

Go here; locate your county; see what is currently recommended by Senate and House for your Cultural and Museum Grant. This decision is not final. You can help secure full funding or the highest level possible.

What are the appropriation differences for Cultural and Museum grants and what is needed to fully fund all of them?

As of today, the Senate recommends $19,460,000 and the House recommends $14,907,118 for the 2016-2017 Cultural and Museum Grants Program. An appropriation of $30,933,457 for budget line item 3103 is needed to fund all 413 at their qualified grant amounts.

Legislative budget conference meetings can begin at any time to reconcile the differences between what the Senate and House recommend for Florida's FY 2017 budget.

You and others must continue to ASK now for a total appropriation of $30,933,457 for budget line item 3103 that is needed to fund all the QUALIFIED GRANT AMOUNTS for your organization and the other 412 grant applicants recommended for these grants.

Who do you ask for their help and leadership to secure the $30,933,457 appropriation needed to fully fund your Cultural and Museum Grant and the other 412 qualified grant applicants?

Your Florida Senator and Representative and the eight legislative leaders listed below. Take the two action steps now, and let's all plug into our collective power to get their ATTENTION about this issue.

ACTION STEP #1 -- takes two minutes:

Go here to quickly communicate with your Florida Senator and Representative about this issue. If you have not already done action step #1 as requested in previous alerts, it's not too late. It will take you two minutes.

ACTION STEP #2 -- takes 10 - 15 minutes to follow the 4 simple steps below:

Follow the four simple steps below to send 8 emails to the eight legislative leaders listed below. They must hear from hundreds of us throughout the State now. They have the power to either not fund, partially fund, or fully fund your Cultural and Museum grant. If they don't hear from people, this issue will not get their attention.

NOTE that the quick automated system used in Action Step #1 will not work for Action Step #2. It only lets advocates send emails to their own representative and senator.

To get the ATTENTION of the 8 legislative leaders listed below, we all need to invest about 10-15 minutes now to send individual, not group, emails to them about this issue.

Potentially hundreds or thousands of more dollars for your Cultural and Museum grant is worth the investment of your time now.

Copy, paste, and feel free to edit this suggested email message to use in your 8 emails. It also suggests subject-box titles you can use.

Make sure you have linked the two documents referenced in the email so they can easily access this information within the emails you send:

Document A shows by counties what these Cultural and Museum Grants (1) qualify for; (2) what the Senate currently recommends; (3) what the House currently recommends; and (4) what the potential loss of State investments would be for each county.

Document B shows the collective expenses of all 413 Cultural and Museum grant applicants. This one-page document helps demonstrate diverse economic development and jobs created by all of these qualified grant applicants.

Please blind copy the Florida Cultural Alliance at info@FLCA.net on your emails so we know who is being contacted and from which counties;

Please ask your board members and other supporters to also follow up on Action Steps #1 and #2 as outlined in this Alert.

There is power in numbers,
especially during an election year.

Contact Information for Senate and House Legislative Leaders -- all 8 need to hear from you and other arts and culture advocates now:

SENATE LEADERSHIP:

Leadership

Position:

E-mail Addresses:

Capitol Phone #:

Andy Gardiner

Senate President

gardiner.andy@flsenate.gov

(850) 487-5013

Tom Lee

Chairman of Senate Appropriations

lee.tom@flsenate.gov

(850) 487-5024

Jack Latvala

Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Tourism, and Economic Development

latvala.jack@flsenate.gov

(850) 487-5020

Bill Galvano

Senate Majority Leader

galvano.bill@flsenate.gov

(850) 487-5026

HOUSE LEADERSHIP:

Steve Crisafulli

Speaker of the House

steve.crisafulli@myfloridahouse.gov

(850) 717-5051

Richard Corcoran

Chairman of House

Appropriations

richard.corcoran@myfloridahouse.gov

(850) 717-5037

Clay Ingram

Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Economic Development

clay.ingram@myfloridahouse.gov

(850) 717-5001

Dana Young

House Majority Leader

dana.young@myfloridahouse.gov

(850) 717-5060

We will continue to send you briefings and alerts throughout the legislative process, and inform you when the budget conference meetings are scheduled and who will serve on them.

Please take action immediately when you get these action alerts. Decisions are being made daily in Tallahassee, and they need to hear from you about this issue and other issues that matter to our arts, arts education, and culture industry.

Many thanks for your advocacy follow through on

action steps 1 and 2 above.

Your voice matters and makes a difference.