The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has awarded sixteen arts organizations at the start-up level with its second round of SEED grants—unrestricted funds for operating that enable recipients to build programming to ensure growth. Each award winner has been selected through an anonymous nomination process in partnership with local cultural leaders, and each will receive thirty thousand dollars over three years. Winners range from Sugar City in Buffalo, New York—an organization seeking to promote an alternative arts community through regional events—to Cattle Track Arts and Preservation in Phoenix, Arizona—a desert-based community of artists who live and work together. Said executive director of the foundation Christy MacLear: “Young institutions have a whole host of hurdles to clear simply to begin the process of raising money. We hope to reach promising start-ups earlier than that, both to acknowledge their initial accomplishments and to ensure their longevity.”