A downtown State College nonprofit is bracing for a significant financial blow after learning it will lose half of its expected budget due to federal funding cuts.
3 Dots Downtown, an arts and community space, hosted a town hall on Wednesday evening where more than 70 artists, students, educators and community members gathered to discuss the impact of cuts to arts organizations in the area.
Executive Director Erica Quinn said 3 Dots, founded in 2019, relies heavily on grants to fund its programs, which include shared space for events, $1,000 grants for community-building projects and an artist-in-residence program.
“To this point, our funding has been primarily grants, and there’s been a 50% reduction in our expected budget for a year,” Quinn said. “At a certain point, you want programs for people. So the conversations are, do we want this organization to exist? Tonight’s answer was a resounding yes.”
Quinn urged attendees to embrace what she called “radical collaboration.”
“We need accountants and lawyers and community organizers and artists and grandmas to come and tell us how to do things,” she said. “Everybody has something to bring to this cause.”
Since its founding, Quinn said 3 Dots has awarded over $75,000 in grants and hosted programming for more than 40,000 people annually. Artists they’ve worked with in the past have gone on to launch brick-and-mortar businesses and expanded projects across the region. Quinn said 3 Dots serves as “a critical place for community engagement” and “a major nexus in the larger cultural ecosystem.”
Michelle Rodino-Colocino, an associate professor of media studies and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State, says the loss of funding feels personal.
“It literally feels like I’ve just learned that I’m going to lose part of my body or part of my being,” she said. “Our community is 50% less strong, our future is 50% less strong. I feel like I need to try twice as hard and bring twice as much energy to fill the funding gap.”
Rodino-Colocino, who has been involved in the arts both as a performer and supporter, said she sees art as a form of healing.
“Storytelling and self-expression are part of being human,” she said. “The arts do so much work that is, in fact, healing and empowering. To lose that would be devastating.”
Quinn touched on financial donations but noted that there are many ways for the community to get involved through volunteering and joining committees and boards.
“We are only as good as everybody who’s in the room,” she said. “And there’s wisdom in the room here tonight.”