The City’s Taking Your $ (and giving it back) - 📍 Vancouver, WA

“Inspire Vancouver” is about to grant more than $6 million to arts, culture, heritage, and science programming and education. Where did this money come from, how are they distributing it, and how is this going to change the landscape for our community? Let's get into it.

🎉 For more info and links to the Inspire Vancouver program, visit the episode page.

🎧 Other episodes you might like:
- State of the City 2026
- Vancouver Arts and Music Festival Brings the World to Our Backyard

Transcript

Adriana: 0:49

The city of Vancouver is about to dump over $6 million into arts, culture, heritage, and science. They're doing it this year, and then they're going to do it again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and the year after that. How are they doing this? Well, we are lucky enough to be part of something called the Inspire Program. It is a statewide program which allows counties or cities to collect a .01% sales tax and put that money into a bank account, and then give it right back out to arts, culture, heritage, and science. Vancouver is one of five places in the state that has enacted this tax so far. Now, if you're listening from a place outside of the Vancouver city limits, as many of us are, I hope you will take under consideration the idea that all of our towns can do this. In fact, Clark County as a whole could do this. Can you imagine what .01% sales tax in the entire county would do for arts, culture, heritage, and science? So many things. So in this episode, I'm sitting down with two of the people who are at the core of making this Inspire program possible and happen here in Vancouver. There's also money in here for education, for school programs. We're talking about how the entire public school system of Vancouver and Evergreen are going to benefit from this money, and we talk about who's paying for it, how it's getting allocated, and who's eligible to apply for this funding. This is one of those turning point moments where there was before the Inspire tax and there will be after the Inspire tax. The first grant money will start going out this fall, and then we are just going to continue to collect money and spend it on the things that make our cultural community strong. So please enjoy my conversation with Stacey Donovan from the city of Vancouver, and Linda Reid, who is on the Culture, Arts, and Heritage Commission, and one of the people who helped push this initiative forward. If you are an arts organization, stay tuned through this episode because we do talk about the granting process, who's eligible, how you're gonna get your money. And if you are an interested party who wants to know how your money is being spent, we talk about that, too. Oh boy, you guys, I'm so excited about this program. I'm really, really jazzed. Six to $7 million just here in the first year. As our community grows, so does this tax. I can't wait to see where we are in five years from now. Okay. Enjoy my conversation with Stacey and Linda Welcome to I'm Into This Place, your deep dive into the local arts, culture, and heritage of Clark County. From fabulous new restaurants to quirky art installations, to the historical sites you never even knew to look for, we're inviting you along. Whether you're a Clark County connoisseur or just starting to get to know her, get ready to fall head over heels for this place we call home. I'm your host, Adriana Baer, and I'm into this place. Let's go. We are gonna talk all about Inspire Vancouver. But first, let's get a little introduction from our guests today. Why don't you start, Stacey?

Stacey: 4:25

Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here. Stacey Donovan, City of Vancouver Cultural Services Manager for the city, and I work directly with our Culture, Arts, and Heritage Commission, managing the Culture, Arts, and Heritage program for the city.

Adriana: 4:38

Awesome. And Stacey, welcome back. You were our guest on our episode about the Vancouver Arts and Music Festival, which we are having another round of coming up soon. So I can't wait to hear from you again about that. And how about our other guest?

Linda: 4:53

Uh, Linda Reid. I'm a former City of Vancouver Cultural, Arts, and Heritage Commission member. Um, I've been an integral part of the strategic planning for Inspire Vancouver, and a newly Inspire Washington State board member.

Adriana: 5:06

So my first set of questions is just to get us more familiar with what the Inspire Vancouver program actually is, and the tax that's being collected that's allowing us all this incredible arts, culture, heritage, and science programming in the city. So let's talk about the program broad strokes. Linda, will you tell us a little bit about the history of the program and the other communities who have this program and the State of Washington's background?

Linda: 5:36

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Inspire Washington advocated for RCW code to develop this program seven years ago. The RCW code allows cities or counties across the state to add a .01% tax to their sales tax, nominal, to be collected and then granted out for arts, culture, and heritage projects.

Adriana: 5:59

For those of us who are, um, not great on tax code-

Linda: 6:02

Yeah… Adriana: what is an RCW? State code. It's legal language that's written in Olympia for cities to adopt.

Adriana: 6:10

The state approved this particular code that allows cities to implement this tax and collect money for this purpose of arts, culture, heritage, and science.

Linda: 6:21

Correct.

Adriana: 6:22

And how many other cities have done this before Vancouver?

Linda: 6:26

So we had Olympia, Tacoma. We have King County and San Juan County, so we have two counties, and then now Vancouver, so we're the third city. So five entities, basically.

Adriana: 6:37

How then does this work? We've got a .01% sales tax. So will you talk us through kind of the mechanisms? Like, I go to this coffee shop, I buy my latte.

Linda: 6:51

Yes.

Adriana: 6:52

An amount of money is collected, very teeny-weeny amount of money is collected, and then what happens?

Linda: 6:57

Well, in the city or the county, when you go shopping or out to eat, or when all these people visit our wonderful city and spend tourism dollars, we are collecting sales tax, and the .01% of that is scooped out of that and held at the tax department in Olympia, and then periodically those funds are sent to the city of Vancouver in a restricted fund to hold for our grant process.

Adriana: 7:22

And .01% sounds like nothing.

Linda: 7:27

It is nothing.

Adriana: 7:28

But it adds up-

Linda: 7:30

Yes… Adriana: to a lot of money. So we've been collecting this tax now since last May. Uh-huh.

Adriana: 7:35

May of 2025.

Linda: 7:36

Yeah, yeah.

Adriana: 7:37

How much have we collected? What's in the bank?

Linda: 7:40

Yeah, we have a lot of money in the bank. So we projected it would be around $7 million in 12 months, and we've hit that earmark.

Adriana: 7:46

$7 million-

Linda: 7:47

I know. I know … is a lot of dollars. It's very exciting. Yeah, yeah. Very exciting.

Adriana: 7:51

That's so cool.

Linda: 7:52

Yeah.

Adriana: 7:52

Okay, you introduced yourself as a former member of the city's Culture, Arts, and Heritage Commission, and it's my understanding that that's the entity that is overseeing how this money is going to be distributed through this program that's called Inspire Vancouver. Can you talk a little bit about that commission and its relationship to the city, and then also its relationship to this grant program?

Linda: 8:18

Seven years ago, the city adopted and formed a cultural plan, and in that plan was to form a Culture, Arts, and Heritage Commission made up of community members to advise the city, to support the city in all things culture, arts, and heritage. Um, when city council approved participating in this program, they granted the authority for the approval of the distribution of those funds to that commission.

Adriana: 8:48

Oh, interesting.

Linda: 8:49

So we put together, um, strategic planning groups of community members to basically draft the plan And then the plan was presented to commission. Commission gave feedback, changes were made, then it was presented to city council. So basically, we had outside community also giving input on this.

Stacey: 9:11

Which is actually the policy. Yeah. I- it's the policy around the funding for this program, and then that, like Linda said- Yeah … it was adopted by city council. And that policy is what we will be following for the distribution of the funds. Yeah.

Adriana: 9:23

That's really interesting. So it's not actually city council or city staff members that are overseeing this fund. It's this Culture, Arts, and Heritage Commission.

Linda: 9:33

Yes, and that's different for the city. Other grant programs, city council approves the slate of grantees.

Adriana: 9:39

Right, right, right And so there is a new staff that is being brought on to manage this grant program

Stacey: 9:48

A big part of what the program staff, um, need to do is really help educate the community. This funding, um, the sales tax was not taken out to a vote. It didn't need to be. It was a, it was able to be, um, council manic, which means city council could just automatically adopt it, which they did, which is wonderful, but because of that, most of the community probably is not aware that they're even paying the sales tax. So a big role that the city staff will be playing is to get out and really educate the community, not just the eligible nonprofits and artists that, that might apply, but the community, the, the public who's paying into this tax and will hopefully see the benefit of it. So over the next year, we'll be working closely with the public to help them understand what's being funded and how their money is being used. Um, once the grant application's open, it's, it's really important to city staff that the eligible, uh, nonprofits can, um, navigate the application process as easily as possible. We understand that barriers can get in the way, and we absolutely do not want that to happen. So the application has been designed to be really low barrier, so we can receive applications throughout the community, even from small groups that don't necessarily have the capacity to do a lot of grant writing. We want to keep this as simple as possible. So every step along the way through the open application process, staff will be keeping in touch with the applicants to ensure that they're on track to meet that deadline for their application. Once the application process is closed, we'll have a grant review committee, and that will be made up totally of volunteers throughout the city, and these will be volunteers who are involved in culture, arts, heritage, and science, and hopefully a few members from the general public who can sit on that review committee and help determine how these public funds should be spent. And so they will review all of these applications and make their recommendations to the Culture, Arts, and Heritage Commission, and they'll use a, a rubric scorecard based on all the criteria that come along with the program. And the commission has helped determine what the scorecard should be, what the criteria should be. So the commission is very much leading this process, and they will also be helping us select the review committee members. So every step along the way, this grant program is, has been designed by the community, is being reviewed by the community members, volunteers, and the role that staff plays is to support the needs of, of these volunteers to make it successful.

Adriana: 12:24

Thank you very much, volunteers, for your time- Yeah … and your service.

Stacey: 12:27

Yeah, yeah.

Adriana: 12:28

So we've got approximately six million dollars right now, it's growing all the time, to give away. So let's get into talking about these actual grants that are the grants that people can apply for. Stacey, will you give us a rundown of the different grant categories?

Stacey: 12:45

So we have four different grant categories. We've got an innovation category, and that can be for a, a, a nonprofit or an individual artist who might be new or has been around for a long time, but they have this really great new idea for a project or program that they wanna do. It's a one-year grant, and the funding is available upfront. So that's a grant for maybe some really innovative ideas or collaboration with another artist or, or organization, and that's anywhere from 5,000 to $25,000. The second is an impact grant. This is a grant that could be more for an, a little bit more established organization or artist with a fiscal sponsor, and it could be for a festival or an event or doing a, a educational program in a school or in the community. And then we have the comprehensive grant, and that, that can be up to a two-year grant, and that's meant to be a grant that supports, um, nonprofits, um, structurally. Maybe it helps them grow their programs or bring staff on board, helps them pay for marketing. It really helps to establish nonprofits, and we understand that it's, that's gonna take more than just one year. And then we have capital grants, which are really meant to help with infrastructure of venues and, um, organizations. Maybe an organization needs to do some, um, accessibility updates on their building. They could apply for a capital grant for that. They could use this as seed money to, to meet another capital grant opportunity. The capital grants are 300,000-plus. The comprehensive grants are between 100,000 and 300,000. So those are our four main grant categories. Our typical cycle will be July to June. But what we're going to do this first round, uh, we're hoping by the end of July to open up three of the grant categories, impact, innovation, and comprehensive, and they'll have a shorter time period. They will have nine months to spend that money, and this is kind of meant to give us an opportunity to really understand how our process is going and making, to help us help staff ensure that it's set up in a, in a way that will be successful for the applicants.

Adriana: 15:00

Listening to you describe all of the different ways that you've put thought into this. It feels really supportive of the organizations and the, and the artists, and also realistic about how things actually are. There was this sort of old school belief in capacity building grants where, oh, well, you get a capacity building grant, you hire a development director, and then by the end of the first year, they've paid for themselves with the new funding you're getting, and then it's just exponential from there. And that's not the world we live in right now. So to know that You understand that, and then, yeah, and maybe you need that same amount of money again, and you can come right back and apply for it again. That's really unique, and I think will make a big difference.

Stacey: 15:50

We also understand that there needs to be some support in place during the application process, and then even after the award. We've tried to make the reporting process, because we, we are responsible for reporting out how this money is being spent. And so our staff will be really thoughtful in how they engage in conversation with awardees after they've received the funding. So we don't want to create unnecessary reporting that's just going to bog them down and, and slow down the work that they're trying to do.

Linda: 16:21

It's extremely important information that we're trying to get back from them, too, to show proof of the program, too, right? I wanna know, as somebody who is shopping and putting money into this program, what my money's being spent on and the impact that it's having in the community. And when the program comes up for renewal in six years, we wanna be able to show City Council why they approved this and why they should continue it for another seven years.

Adriana: 16:45

Yeah, and it really does sound like your grantees in this first year are going to be partners on feedback, and it's a cool opportunity. So speaking of your grantees, let's talk about who's eligible for this money. What do you need to be or do in order to get some of this cool six mil?

Linda: 17:00

So according to the RCW that was written, the rules, um, you need to be a 501[c][3] in the state of Washington, that your primary mission is to promote arts, culture, heritage, and science in the city of Vancouver, in the city limits. You can also be an individual in any one of those categories, uh, with a fiscal sponsor. Your organization or you do 55% or more of your programming within Vancouver city limits. And I'll just make a plug right here. We have a fantastic website for Inspire Vancouver that has an eligibility tracker on it. You can get onto the website and answer questions to figure out if you're within those boundaries or not.

Adriana: 17:42

Yeah, and I think that's a pretty flexible thing, actually- It's pretty

Linda: 17:45

broad… ' Adriana: cause, 'cause I, I know and confusion early on about what actually was the city limits- Yeah and what if I did some programming in Camas and some programming in Ridgefield. But 55% within the city limits, you can look at the tracker. That feels manageable, and probably most of us are already doing that. Yeah, exactly. You

Adriana: 18:05

know? Yeah.

Stacey: 18:05

Yeah. And we don't want anyone to self-eliminate, so if they use the tracker and it seems like maybe they aren't eligible, we want them to contact program staff t- so we can talk through with them, "Okay, what is your mission? What was your, your nonprofit description that was filed with the secretary of state?" And we'll, we'll be looking at both of those things to help them determine if they do have the proper programming to be eligible for this.

Adriana: 18:29

Let's talk about that education money. So 10% of the collected funds is earmarked for education, 5% to Vancouver Public School District, 5% to Evergreen. What is that money actually going to be used for?

Stacey: 18:44

So it's, it's meant to be used for transportation and access to programming and, and venues. It's, it's really, uh, an exciting way to keep opportunities for field trips available to the schools with all of the funding cuts that they've been dealing with. There is also funding available for in-school programming, which we're really excited about. So if you're an artist or a, um, nonprofit that wants to take programming into the schools, we'll have a, a grant coordinator on staff who will work with you to make sure that what you would like to bring into the schools meets the curriculum of what the schools are looking for, and that will be a separate granting program for that.

Linda: 19:24

This was part of the state RCW code that a minimum of 5% of your city's funds had to go to school districts to pay for transportation. That was written into that. So we adopted that and took it a little bit farther to allow more opportunities for kids in school.

Stacey: 19:41

Each school district has a representative that's working with their district, with their superintendents, with their teachers to set up a process where each classroom gets a certain number of trips. So it will be very equitable.

Adriana: 19:54

Wow. So each classroom could get more than one trip-

Stacey: 19:56

Right… Adriana: throughout the year? Mm-hmm. Yes. Um, potentially up to three, uh, field trips, especially in that, in the elementary level.

Linda: 20:04

Yeah, and we do realize that both in Vancouver and Evergreen school districts, some of their schools outlay in the county But to be equal and fair, we included the entire districts.

Adriana: 20:16

That's great.

Linda: 20:18

It's good to know that this isn't money in the city's budget that city devised this program to grant out. This is the community's money that the state offered guidelines to help promote a sector that's traditionally unfunded. Um, we value arts, culture, and heritage in this city. We have for a while, and it's so wonderful now to have such a pot of money to uplift these individuals, these organizations, rather than say, "Can you come and do that for free for us?" Or, "Can you make a donation for us?" We finally get to add value to what these people offer to our community.

Stacey: 20:55

One of the things we're going to do is once we have all of our program staff on board, we'll host an open house to invite the community in to meet the staff, talk to them, learn a little bit more about eligibility. And after this first round of grants, we'll be getting out and doing more community engagement with the broader public to help them see how their tax dollar's being spent.

Adriana: 21:16

If you are not yet signed up for our newsletter, make sure you sign up for that. You can do that on our website or through the link in our show notes. I will make sure that the dates for these open houses and informational events are always listed. I do also wanna clarify that the city itself is not eligible for this money.

Stacey: 21:35

Oh, great. Yeah.

Adriana: 21:35

And that is important because we have been Very excited here at I'm Into This Place about the potential for a new performing arts center-

Stacey: 21:45

Mm-hmm

Adriana: 21:45

that the city is talking about building. But this money is not going to be distributed back internally into the city's budget. This is all going out to existing nonprofits and individual artists.

Stacey: 22:00

That's correct.

Adriana: 22:00

So before we wrap up, I just wanna end with asking each of you to kind of imagine for a moment, what are your hopes or your big vision for arts, culture, heritage, or science in Vancouver?

Stacey: 22:16

I'm excited to see the development of this cultural ecosystem and, and really have it broaden beyond just the downtown area. I know that throughout Vancouver we've got some great cultural assets and organizations, but they're not quite as visible necessarily. So I'm really excited to see what this funding does for some organizations who might not be right down in the, right in the downtown area. I mean, I'm excited for what we're going to see in downtown, but I'm also really interested in seeing who's out there that just hasn't had the funding or the voice to, to grow their program. I mean, the way I think this funding can really support.

Linda: 22:49

Yeah, I agree. Uh, we don't know what we don't know. I think there's so much out there, and I'm so excited to see who all applies for these grants, and to see, you know, our community really turn into like an artisan destination because I don't live here because we have a great freeway that goes down the middle of my city. I live here for all things arts, culture, heritage, and science. That's what makes life enjoyable. So to be able to finally grow that in our own community's gonna be just fantastic.

Adriana: 23:17

And I wanna make a little plug that this tax code can be implemented by any town or city with a city council. So everybody listening from Ridgefield, from Battle Ground, from Camas, from Washougal, get on the phone with your mayor and your city council and get this thing implemented. We are not talking about very m- many dollars out of our pockets for a huge impact. Imagine what a million dollars for the arts could do for Ridgefield. That would be a, a game changer. So that's my gauntlet and my big vision is that we see this in every town or even at the county level. Let's see what we can do. Linda and Stacey, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to see where this all goes next.

Stacey: 24:05

I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Adriana: 24:09

And now let's hear from you. This is our Community Voices segment, where you call in to shout out your favorites in local arts, culture, and heritage. Community Voices is sponsored by Johnson Bixby. At Johnson Bixby, you get a financial planning and portfolio management team that helps you imagine what's possible in life, create a plan, and get there over time. Advisory services by Johnson Bixby, SEC registered. Securities through Private Client Services, member FINRA, SIPC.

Guest: 24:44

Hi, I'm Lulu, and I would like to give a big shout-out to Miss Becky, the director of Columbia Dance. She is a great director. She is very nice, and she's just amazing. Columbia Dance is a great dance studio, and I think anybody could do it, even people with disabilities. They have a special class. Anybody could do it. Hello, this is Melanie Kates, and I'd like to give a shout-out to Wild Camp Goods. They are a great little outdoors store, and they're doing some incredible stuff. They are creating their own bags out of recycled materials, and they are doing some great work for sustainability, as well as hosting a flea market every other week. So incredible things for the community. I highly recommend Wild Camp Goods.

Adriana: 25:37

We'd love to hear from you. What are your favorite spots in Clark County? Who really deserves a shout-out? Give us a call and leave a message, or send us a voice note via email. All the details on how to do that are in the show notes. I'm Into This Place is produced and edited by me, Adriana Baer. Engineering by Shawn Lee Martin. This episode was recorded at The Soundstage, the Northwest's premier voiceover and recording studio, right on Main Street in downtown Vancouver. If you liked this episode, I think you might really enjoy my coverage of Vancouver mayor, Anne McEnerny-Ogle's State of the City address. That episode was broadcast on March 3rd. And definitely come back next week for our interview with Clark County poet laureate, Susan Dingle. And just a reminder that we always put a ton of information in our weekly newsletter, including links to the podcast and upcoming events. If you'd like to check that out, please sign up. The link is in the show notes. You can find out more about us and the Inspire Vancouver program at imintothisplace.com. See you out there