Almost exactly one year ago, the King County Council unanimously passed Doors Open legislation, dramatically increasing funding for King County arts, heritage, science, and historic preservation nonprofits through a 0.1 percent sales tax. Over the next seven years, Doors Open is expected to generate roughly $700 million—a major investment in the ongoing cultural vitality of our region.

The County designated 4Culture to distribute these funds, based on our deep grantmaking experience and expertise. In May, we submitted a draft Doors Open Implementation Plan to the King County Executive—and today the King County Council approved it unanimously.

We are deeply grateful to the Executive and Council for their leadership, and specifically to Councilmembers Balducci and Zahilay for their co-sponsorship of the plan. We thank all the elected officials and their staff who took their responsibility to heart, dedicating their time to ensure the plan represents the needs of cultural sector and the County.

This funding comes at a critical time, when many of the county’s more than 800 arts, heritage, science, and historic preservation organizations are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic. Doors Open will help those organizations stabilize, preserving jobs and helping to maintain public access to cultural experiences while shoring up the overall creative sector, which is a powerful driver of the local economy.

But Doors Open is not just about survival. It’s about creating the kind of meaningful growth and transformation that will power the cultural sector well into the future. Doors Open funding will help organizations to deepen their work—whether in research, interpretation, or the creative process. We hope it  will also catalyze additional philanthropic and government investments in the vibrant culture that makes people want to live and work here, because no one program, even one as robust as Doors Open, can do that work alone.

After years of preparation, we’re ready to make the first grants!

Doors Open would never have been possible without a decade-plus of steadfast advocacy by people throughout the cultural sector, particularly Inspire Washington and its executive director, Manny Cawaling. 4Culture is proud to have worked alongside these committed and visionary leaders.

Knowing that a Cultural Access program like Doors Open was a possibility, we have been getting ready for years, methodically laying the groundwork to ensure its success. Our preparation began at the heart of 4Culture, with updates to our mission, vision, and values. We convened community conversations that informed the creation of the King County Cultural Plan, the 4Culture Cultural Health Study and an Education Study to increase understanding of the local landscape. 4Culture has always been rooted in community needs and opportunities; Doors Open is a natural extension of the work we’ve been doing for 60 years.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be awarding an initial round of Operating and Capital Facilities grants designed to infuse desperately needed resources into the cultural sector, using funds that have been collected through the sales tax since it began on April 1, 2024. A list of these grants will be published on our website in December.

All Doors Opens grants are being made based on the application process. Discipline-specific Advisory Committees (composed of peers in the community) evaluate these applications and make funding recommendations to 4Culture’s Board of Directors. A minimum of 25% of these grants will go to organizations outside of the city of Seattle, expanding capacity in areas of King County that have limited funding for cultural resources. Doors Open grants are also following our existing equitable grantmaking processes and operations, which are designed to address historic systemic inequities in funding.

Next year, 4Culture will be rolling out additional Doors Open funding programs, we invite you to learn more about these efforts here.

We look forward to what the future has in store! You can expect more updates about Doors Open programs and their impact in the months ahead.