Filipino Arts Accelerator Balay Kreative Pauses Operations in SF, Citing Funding

As the federal government makes huge cuts to arts funding, local organizations like Balay Kreative are feeling the pressure from Washington, D.C. all the way down to the city level.

Last week, the San Francisco-based Filipino arts accelerator announced a pause on its operations.

Desi Danganan, executive director of Balay Kreative’s umbrella organization Kultivate Labs, explained in a post on the organization’s website that the decision was due to funding. Over the past two years, the organization has had to lay off staff and cut their budget by more than $500,000, while from 2024 to 2025, funding dropped by 80%, according to Danganan.

“We can no longer operate as if it’s business as usual,” he wrote.

Located on Mission Street in the retail floor level of a city parking garage, where it receives free rent from SFMTA, Balay Kreative provides pop-up studio space to Filipino American artists, designers and small businesses in the SOMA Pilipinas Filipino Heritage District. It has also dispersed grants to individual artists.

Kultivate Labs will work on repurposing the Balay Kreative space on Mission Street for Republika, an artisan marketplace and art gallery, which is fully funded, Danganan said.

Danganan explained that future funding for Balay Kreative has been jeopardized by the NEA’s cancellation of the Challenge America grant, and its announcement to no longer support organizations grounded in diversity, equity and inclusion. In the latest round of NEA grants, Balay Kreative received $15,000 to support the Balay Kreative Growth Masterclass Series.

Over the phone Danganan called the NEA announcement “salt in the wound,” and illustrative of the federal government’s priorities as a whole. “They want to dismantle anything that is for marginalized communities,” Danganan said of the current administration.

Locally, in San Francisco, he sees a systematic problem in which the city is promoting itself as an arts and culture hub but not providing enough resources.

“We were one of those organizations that they highlighted,” Danganan said of the city. He noted that Kultivate Labs has a few “arms,” which allows the organization to generate revenue for programs like Kapwa Gardens and Undiscovered SF. “We were the ones doing really well,” said Danganan, “and we’re still getting a 60% cut.”

Grants for the Arts, funded by a hotel tax, has seen reduced revenue in the wake of the COVID pandemic and a “doom loop” narrative about San Francisco, both of which have kept tourists away from the city.

While the city has been encouraging artists and organizations to move back downtown, Danganan has seen several recent closures on his organization’s block in SoMa.

“There was a restaurant next to us,” he said. “SF Pizza closed. The T-Mobile store on our block closed.” He adds to the list the upcoming closure of department store Bloomingdales, across the street from Balay Kreative, and a recently closed Starbucks at the end of the block (another Starbucks, directly across the street from it, remains open).

“Are they going to have to bring in arts and culture from the outside,” Danganan said, “instead of incubating the arts and culture that we have here?”