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About MACLA
MACLA is an energizing contemporary arts space located in San Jose, California. The organization was founded in 1989 by a group of community activists engaged in a broad mobilization to change the representation of multicultural artists within the City's art allocations.
We reach over 16,000 people a year with our Visual Arts and Perfomance and Literary programs. In support of these programs, a core group of individual donors and volunteers contribute time and resources to MACLA on an ongoing basis.
The cross-pollination of Latino and non-Latino audiences has been a distinctive feature of MACLA since its inception. Our patrons, audiences, and participants are 70% Latino and 30% non-Latino. A large part of our programs are geared towards creating opportunities for interaction between traditional audiences and new art forms and emerging artists. Another important group we serve are artists. In FY 99-00 we presented 79 artists and provided support to them in the amount of $134,000. This amount represented 35% of our total income that year.
With an annual budget of approximately $600,000 and a staff of 4FT and 2PT employees, MACLA has operated without a deficit for the last 11 years and has increased the budget by 500% in five years, growing at the rate of approximately $100,000 a year in increased income. In addition, MACLA is involved in a significant planning project in partnership with three other organizations and the City's Redevelopment Agency for the development of a multi-tenant visual arts center in the building that it currently occupies. However, this level of accelerated growth has brought a new awareness to the Board and staff about the long-term capacity and sustainability of the organization. Currently, the organization is participating in an Initiative sponsored by the Andy Warhol Foundation to address a number of fundamental "growing pains" inherent to the nature of mid-sized organizations.
While there are several excellent Latino cultural organizations in San Jose and the Bay Area, MACLA stands apart in the field. First, MACLA has demonstrated a commitment to emerging Latino artists and audiences and secondly, MACLA has a solid record of collaboration with other Latino mainstream institutions. Many of these collaborations are not strictly related to arts programming, but often time seek to develop the well being of the Latino community as a vital force in society. The most significant example was MACLA's participation in incubating and organizing the first charter school in San Jose, Downtown College Prep, which serves primarily Latino youth without a family history of college attendance.
