By Michael Zwiebach, senior editor
“This administration is very frightened of the arts, and it should be.” — Jericha Senyak, financial consultant for artists
Typically, I’m a glass-half-full guy. I believe live, nonprofit arts performances impact American culture more than is generally believed. In a previous post, I used data collected by journalist Douglas MacLennan to make that point.
But since arts nonprofits can’t survive on ticket sales alone, they can be simultaneously successful and in dire financial straits. As a corollary, assessing the health of an arts organization, much less the state of a local arts ecosystem, is tricky. It’s an art that requires a deep knowledge of how arts nonprofits actually operate, because it’s a very different world than for-profit companies.
It’s no wonder that a lot of thinking about organizations’ viability in an unprecedented environment focuses on easily observable phenomena — large, exogenous shocks like the COVID pandemic shutdown. But after that, it’s straight to a narrative that many arts executives know well: you’re not popular enough, and you’re not good with money. (If you were, you’d make a profit.)
As a reporter, I want to know, on a deeper level, what the situation for arts nonprofits actually is, especially in the Bay Area, and especially for the smaller groups.
As a first step, I contacted an accountant, Jericha Senyak, who works with Bay Area arts nonprofits. She’s been doing this work for more than 15 years and has helped prominent groups like the Kronos Quartet and the Shotgun Players. At present, she’s advising a cohort of 25 small arts groups during a six-month, San Francisco Foundation-funded effort to improve the organizations’ financial infrastructures and provide their leaders with the understanding they need to be financially empowered.
What she told me was a little alarming: “2025-2026 is the worst year for classical arts organizations since I’ve started doing this work.”
The reason for this goes deep into the deficiencies of arts funding. But — not to bury the lead — the main reason traces directly to a large and unexpected shock that came from the government.
In 2025, the federal government rescinded grants that had already been made to arts organizations and took the money back. “We’ve been seeing cuts to federal funding rates on and off for years. But this is the worst year for arts funding that I have ever seen,” Senyak said.
Discussions related to nonprofit economics tend to focus on marquee companies like the Metropolitan Opera or National Symphony. But to understand the effect the recent federal recissions had, bear in mind something that Senyak emphasized early in our interview. “There are 1.3 million nonprofits in this country registered with the IRS,” she said. “And of those nonprofits, 96% have budgets under $2 million. 92% have budgets under $500,000. The vast majority of arts organizations in this country, and nonprofits generally, are tiny.”
If we’re discussing an organization of that size, the loss of $100,000, means the elimination of an entire staff position or a whole production. That’s not to say large organizations are unaffected, but they have more options. And in a year of high inflation and lower ticket sales post COVID, “it means you can’t plan easily,” she explained.
“The volatility is shattering organizations right, left, and center because they cannot figure out how to pay for their programming and without their programming, they can’t raise more funding.”
Foundations and other granting agencies are often allergic to providing general operating funds. They want to fund the cool stuff, the performances. They want to see new programming initiatives that are hard to create when your planning has been disrupted.
It’s not hard to see the government’s move as political, because the arts themselves are political. We all know this. As Senyak eloquently put it, “Art has historically been a lever of tremendous social change, an expression of discontent, a medium for discovering new possibilities. Art is ferment and there’s a reason that every totalitarian government comes after the artists through book censorship, cuts to arts funding. This administration is very frightened of the arts, and it should be.”
But the federal cutbacks were preceded by cutbacks at the state and local levels that were just as damaging. Coming out of the COVID pandemic shutdown, payroll support grants and unrestricted foundation giving for general arts funding was taken away prematurely, before audiences had returned to live performance venues.
Revenue shortfalls in state and city budgets meant money that local groups depended on was rescinded or just wasn’t there. GTFA changed its funding priorities in search of more social equity. The result, predictably, was a wave of closures in 2023-2024 that claimed some stalwarts of the Bay Area theater scene.
What if 2025-2026 really was worse than all that? In addition to foundation funding changes, Senyak points to donor challenges. Only large organizations have billionaire supporters. “People are struggling. It’s not because arts organizations are producing a worse product. We are in a seriously rough economic moment and people have less money to spend on the arts.”
There are bright spots. Some groups, like Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, SFJAZZ, and SF Ballet report increasing attendance. And many groups are responding with creativity, and as always, stretching dollars further. But as everyone struggles we need to become more aware of the work they’re doing just to survive.
