HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 5m. FY 2025-26 Cultural Arts and Community Promotions Grant Award Modifications Item 5m
Department: Administration
Cost Center: 1007
For Agenda of: 12/2/2025
Placement: Consent
Estimated Time: N/A
FROM: Greg Hermann, Deputy City Manager
Prepared By: Laura Fiedler, Economic Development & Tourism Manager
SUBJECT: FY 2025-26 CULTURAL ARTS AND COMMUNITY PROMOTIONS GRANT
AWARD MODIFICATIONS
RECOMMENDATION
1. Authorize the City Manager or her designee to modify allowed uses of grant
funding when executing contracts for the FY 2025 -26 Cultural Arts and Community
Promotions (CACP) grant recipients; and
2. Authorize the City Manager or her designee to use discretion in accepting or
rejecting submitted receipts from the FY 2025 -26 grant recipients, up to the
approved grant amount for each recipient, while ensuring overall purpose and
intent remains consistent with recommendations from the Promotional
Coordinating Committee and approval by City Council. Grantees must notify staff
of any requested deviation in the use of funds in advance of the expenditure, and
staff will bring any substantial deviations back to the PCC for consideration.
POLICY CONTEXT
As stated in the Promotional Coordinating Committee (PCC) Advisory Body Bylaws:
“The purpose of the PCC is to advise the Council in working to improve the quality
of life for all City residents and our visitors. The Committee recommends projects
to help promote the City as a regional trade, recreation, and tourist center,
consistent with community goals.”
The PCC has been offering promotional grant funding for decades, through which local
non-profit organizations can utilize the funding to promote cultural, recreational, or social
activities in the San Luis Obispo community.
On July 15, 2025, the City Council approved the PCC’s FY 2025 -26 budget, which
included $100,000 for the Cultural Arts and Community Promotions (CACP) Grant
Program. The CACP Grant Program awards competitive grants to non-profits for
marketing and advertising costs related to the promotion of eligible activities and events
in San Luis Obispo. Events must occur between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026, and
have cultural, social, and/or recreational benefit to residents and visitors.
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DISCUSSION
Background
The FY 2025-26 CACP grant cycle was opened on January 31, 2025, and applications
were due on March 17, 2025. As discussed in the next section in greater detail, the PCC
approved recommendations on grant awards on May 14, 2025, and the City Council
approved the PCC recommendations on July 15, 2025 (see 07/15/2025 City Council
Agenda Item 6i - Attachment E for the list of grant recipients and funding amounts).
Following the City Council approval, staff has been drafting and executing contracts with
the grant recipients. Two grant recipients, Downtown SLO and the SLO International Film
Festival, contacted staff during this process and requested modifications to t heir grant
awards.
Downtown SLO
Per the recommendation of the PCC, the City Council awarded Downtown SLO $12,000
for the 2025 Concerts in the Plaza series “to be used towards the media plan as
presented.” Typically, organizations request that the PCC fu nd media expenses,
however, DSLO has sponsorships with media organizations for Concerts in the Plaza and
receives advertising in-kind. Therefore, DSLO has requested that the PCC funding go
towards the following expenses instead:
Funding expense description Amount requested
Videographer – capture content at two concerts $2,000
Signage, banners, wayfinding, A-frames $4,500
Print: posters, rack cards, mailers, postage $2,000
Pedestrian banners $1,500
Artwork $750
Social media ads/boosts $1,800
TOTAL $12,550
At a Special Meeting of the PCC on November 17, 2025, the PCC voted to recommend
that City Council approve the alternative uses of funds listed above, with the exception of
the third item listed as “Print: posters, rack cards, mailers, postage” in the amount of
$2,000. As part of its commitment to sustainability, the PCC has not recommended
funding for print expenses for other grantees in this cycle. This would reduce the
recommended grant award to Downtown SLO from $12,550 to $10,550 and the
remainder would be left in the PCC’s budget for use later in the fiscal year for other
promotional activities. If the funding is unspent by the end of the fiscal year, it would fall
to the general fund unassigned fund balance.
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Item 5m
SLO International Film Festival
Per the recommendation of the PCC, the City Council awarded the SLO International Film
Festival (SLOIFF) $6,000 “to be used towards Variety Package only” for the festival
occurring in April 2026. This was an advertising and marketing package with Variety, a
global multi-platform entertainment news company. At the time that the CACP grant
application was due in March 2025, the SLOIFF had not yet hosted the April 2025 film
festival, which included the use of the Variety promotional package. Following the April
2025 event, the SLOIFF public relations team evaluated the performance of the Variety
package and compared it against the increased cost for the same package offered for
2026. The public relations team advised that the Variety package was not recommended
for the 2026 SLOIFF and that advertising dollars would be better spent elsewhere.
The SLOIFF is therefore seeking to amend its FY 2025-26 CACP grant award to target
audiences where they see opportunity for growth, including the film industry and local
younger demographics. Email blasts would encourage people to take advantage of the
See + Stay package, which is an offer providing free festival passes with two-night
bookings during the festival dates in San Luis Obispo . The See + Stay package is one
aspect of the $20,000 sponsorship that the SLO Tourism Business Improvement District
(TBID) Board voted to approve at their meeting on November 12, 2025.
The proposed alternative promotional plan would be as follows:
Funding expense description Amount requested
Dedicated MovieMaker Magazine Email Blast (1X) $2,000
Targeted Dedicated Emails to Motion Picture Academy and
Writers Guild of America through Vision Media (3X)
$2,250
Hulu Video Ads – targeted to local viewers $1,000
Mustang News (Cal Poly Webpage Ads) $750
TOTAL $6,000
At a Special Meeting of the PCC on November 17, 2025, the PCC voted to recommend
that City Council approve the alternative uses of funds listed above for the SLOIFF.
FY 2025-26 Discretion on Reasonable Modifications
As the FY 2024-25 grant cycle concludes, staff has been collecting receipts and final
reports from grant recipients, as required in the grant guidelines and grant award
agreements. During this process, staff has identified several instances where applicant s
have deviated from the exact marketing and advertising expenses as outlined in the grant
agreements, resulting in the return of funds to the City.
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Item 5m
Staff identified that for the Cultural Grants-in-Aid program (the predecessor to the CACP
program) in FY 2022-23, one grantee returned $1,125. In FY 2023 -24, four grantees in
the CACP program returned a total of $5,105. Final reports are still being reviewed for FY
2024-25 grantees, but so far three organizations have been identified as needing to retu rn
funds. Such funds are returned to the PCC program budget. If the funding is unspent by
the end of the fiscal year, it would fall to the general fund unassigned fund balance.
Staff has identified two main reasons for these deviations: 1) the length of time between
when grant applications are due and when events are executed (up to 16 months) during
which time the event specifics and advertising/marketing needs and costs may cha nge;
and 2) lack of consistency and clarity between the application submissions and the grant
agreements.
The intention of the CACP grant program is to support non -profits in advertising and
marketing events that have cultural, social, and/or recreational benefit for residents and
visitors, and therefore the PCC and staff are aligning on process improvements to achieve
this goal. The PCC and staff are undertaking the following three actions with the intention
of reducing the instances where grant funds need to be returned to the City:
1) Clarifying communications with grant recipients so that they are better aware of
the specific items they are being funded for and the amounts;
2) Requesting that the PCC liaisons to grant recipients and the SLO Chamber PR
liaison reiterates those commitments (the PCC has an annual contract with the
SLO Chamber of Commerce to provide free marketing and public relations
consultations and services to CACP grant recipients);
3) Forming a subcommittee to review the grant guidelines and process for the FY
2026-27 grant cycle, including reviewing for consistency with other City grant
programs and determining the appropriate way to document completed work; and
4) Recommending a modification to future agreements to grant authority to the City
Manager or her designee to allow modified uses of grant funding while ensuring
overall purpose and intent remains consistent with recommendations from the
Promotional Coordinating Committee and approval by City Council.
As an interim step to ensure greater efficiency and process improvement for the execution
of grants for this current FY 2025-26 grant cycle, the PCC also makes the following
recommendation to the City Council:
Authorize the City Manager or her designee to use discretion in accepting or
rejecting submitted receipts from the FY 2025-26 grant recipients, up to the
approved grant amount for each recipient, while ensuring overall purpose and
intent remains consistent with recommendations from the Promotional
Coordinating Committee and approval by City Council. Grantees must notify staff
of any requested deviation in the use of funds in advance of the expenditure, and
staff will bring any substantial deviations back to the PCC for consideration.
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Item 5m
Previous Council or Advisory Body Action
The PCC’s CACP subcommittee met to review the applications, compare the requests to
the grant criteria, and allocate funding accordingly. On May 14, 2025, the PCC held a
public hearing with all applicants to allow for public comment before the recommendation
was forwarded to the City Council for consideration and approval. The committee
received four public comments from the grant applicants and ultimately approved the
recommendation for the FY 2025-26 funding allocations to 23 organizations.
On July 15, 2025, the City Council authorized the City Manager to enter into various
contracts and program expenditures for Community Promotions not to exceed the 2025 -
26 program budget of $367,000 (excludes staffing costs) based on the recommendations
by the PCC, including the 2025-26 Cultural Arts & Community Promotions (CACP)
allocations in the amount of $100,000 and authorization to execute individual agreements
with each grant recipient.
On November 17, 2025, the PCC held a special meeting to consider the mod ifications to
the FY 2025-26 CACP grant awards and to make the recommendations noted in this
report.
Public Engagement
All PCC meetings were noticed in accordance with Brown Act standards. The public will
also have the opportunity to provide public comment before or during the December 2,
2025, City Council meeting. The two affected grantees, Downtown SLO and the SLO
International Film Festival, were also made aware of this item.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) does not apply to the recommended
action in this report, because the action does not constitute a “project” under CEQA
Guidelines sec. 15378.
FISCAL IMPACT
Budgeted: Yes Budget Year: 2025-26
Funding Identified: Yes
Fiscal Analysis:
The total FY 2025-26 program budget for Community Promotions ( PCC) is $398,545, as
can be referenced on page 432 of the City’s adopted FY 25-27 Financial Plan. The CACP
Grant Program under discussion is $100,000 out of the total budget of $398,545. The
recommendations under consideration do not change the overall funding allocations that
have already been approved by Council on July 15, 2025.
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Item 5m
Funding
Sources
Total Budget
Available
Current
Funding
Request
Remaining
Balance
Annual
Ongoing
Cost
General Fund:
Community
Promotions
$398,545 $0 $398,545 $0
State
Federal
Fees
Other:
Total $398,545 $ $398,545 $0
ALTERNATIVES
1. The Council could choose not to authorize the City Manager or her designee to
make the modifications for the FY 2025-26 grant awards. This would mean that
Downtown SLO and the SLOIFF would likely not be able to utilize the grant funds as
approved and would not execute the contracts nor receive funds. This would mean
that up to $18,000 from the CACP grant program for FY 2025 -26 would not be
awarded. Council may provide direction that staff return to Council with an alternative
proposed use of this funding.
2. The Council could choose not to authorize the City Manager or her designee to
use discretion in accepting or rejecting submitted receipts from the FY 2025-26
grant recipients, up to the approved grant amount for each recipient, while
ensuring overall purpose and intent remains consistent with recommendations
from the Promotional Coordinating Committee and approval by City Council.
Per the PCC’s recommendation, grantees would need to notify staff of any requested
deviation in the use of funds in advance of the expenditure, and staff would bring any
substantial deviations back to the PCC for consideration. If this authorization is not
granted, it is possible that additional awarded funding would be returned to the City
from other grantees if reasonable modifications to their advertising and marketing
expenses are not approved. This may cause additional strain on local non -profits,
many of which are experiencing financial constraints from reductions in other sources
of funding.
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