Since its inception in 1994, Poeh Arts has consistently received financial support from the U. S. Department of Education. Supplemental funding comes from a variety of private and public sources and has remained stable for as many years. Some of these sources include the following:
 
  Art of the Americas Institute and Native American Studies of the University of New Mexico  
  Chamiza Foundation  
  Educational Foundation of America  
  McCune Foundation  
  National Endowment for the Arts - Creative Communities  
  NEA Creative Communities  
  New Mexico Arts  
  Pueblo of Pojoaque  
  U.S. Department of Commerce Technology Opportunity Program  
  U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development  
  National Science Foundation - Digital Pueblo Project  
 
Poeh Arts actively seeks funding to provide the excellent art and education classes to American Indian people in Northern New Mexico.
 
Poeh Arts continues its collaborations with several local not for profit organizations, universities, and social service programs to provide art education to the local community and the state. They are as follows:
 
  Pueblo of Pojoaque Boys and Girls Club  
  Pueblo of Pojoaque Housing Corporation  
  Arts of the Americas Institute of the University of New Mexico  
  Native American Studies Department of the University of New Mexico  
  Tewa Women United  
  SFCC - Small Business Development Center; and,  
  A consortium of tribal cultural centers and museums (including the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center of Zuni Pueblo, Jicarilla Apache Culture Center, and Walatowa Visitors Center of Jemez Pueblo.  
 
U. S. Department of Commerce Technology Opportunity Program
The U. S. Department of Commerce, through its Technology Opportunity Program, has awarded a grant of more than $800,000 to the University of New Mexico Arts of the Americas Institute, UNM Albuquerque High Performance Computing Center, and the aforementioned consortium of five tribal cultural centers and museums to develop broadband Internet connections.
 
Titled, "Cyber Sovereignty: The Tribal Access Grid for Museums and Cultural Centers," the one-of-a-kind project paves the way for development and delivery of long-distance education, the exchange of virtual collections and other cultural information, e-commerce and web-based exhibitions and databases.
 
The initial aim is to create an Access Grid node, technology developed through the National Science Foundation's National Computational Science Alliance that streams audio, video, and data over the Internet for large-scale collaborations. Other plans are to install servers and work stations, hire and train system administrators, and provide technical support for each museum and center.
 
Dr. Maria Williams (Tlingit), AAI director and principal investigator for the TOP grant says, "Delivering information over a broadband network will benefit consortium members and provide a model for the nation. One of the main aspects of this model is that other tribes will develop their own programs according to their own culturally-appropriate guidelines, a new phenomenon called cyber sovereignty."
 
The Access Grid will allow students in far reaches of the state to take courses from Poeh Arts in Pojoaque or exchange cultural information and virtual images of the artwork captured and stored in a database, which would include the traditional name of the piece and its cultural and historical context. Each of the centers will develop its own interactive programs such as virtual tours, galleries, collections, exhibits and educational programs for local schools and tribal members.
 
The development of e-commerce could create economic empowerment zones in communities that have traditionally relied on the sale of goods in accessible local markets. At Zuni and Jemez Pueblos, 75 percent of households rely on at least some income from arts production. "An e-commerce option would develop an internal structure of web savvy artists who would benefit from opportunities currently only available to those on the other side of the digital divide," Williams says.
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National Science Foundation - Digital Pueblo Project
In collaboration with the University of New Mexico's High Performance Computing Center and the Arts Technology Center, Poeh Arts is embarking on an ambitious project entitled, "The Digital Pueblo." The proposed goal is to create a Digital Arts and Technology Pueblo that will create an infrastructure in New Mexico for economic development and innovation in the digital arts and science industry. The partners include the University of New Mexico, National Hispanic Culture Center, New Mexico Trains, Aquila Group, Bandelier EFX, Big Byte, ContiFilms, Drumfire, IBM, Intel, National Indian Telecommunications Institute, Pixar, Pueblo of Zuni, Verizon, The Studio, and the Pueblo of Pojoaque. The National Science Foundation is sponsoring the creation of an infrastructure for innovation and economic development in the digital arts and sciences industry including animation, computer graphics in film, television, arts, music and dance.
 
New Mexico is rich in culture and art as well as science and technology. Much of the well-trained talent has been forced to leave the state owing to lack of job opportunities. The state's isolation is an obstacle to entrance into the information technology sector. This partnership establishes the infrastructure for innovation leading to economic well being in the digital arts and sciences industry. The effort brings expertise in digital science and technology in graphic arts to create an infrastructure for digital graphics industry in New Mexico.
 

The project includes three phases of development:

1) technological resources and infrastructure;

2) project creation; and,

3) Innovation and Synergy.

 
Partner sites will house resources for mentoring and training, provide laboratories for creation of jobs and opportunities, and a means for the exchange of ideas and technologies between the arts and sciences. The hope is that empowering people, especially artists, through technology will reverse the drain of talented and innovative people by bringing together industry, government, and academia for both the arts and entertainment.
 
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National Endowment for the Arts - Creative Communities
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) jointly awarded $2.7 million to community schools for the arts to provide art instruction for youth living in public housing. The new program, called Creative Communities, was developed in collaboration with the National Guild for Community Schools of the Arts (NGCSA). It makes available free, weekly art instruction by professional artists at 20 sites in 20 different states. Each site received a grant of $135,000 to fund its activities for three years. Classes will be provided in music, dance, visual arts and drama and will range from early childhood arts programs to intensive instruction for youth who show particular talent.
 
"As these young people become engaged in art making, the will develop their creativity, increase their self-esteem and learn valuable job skills," said Bill Ivey, NEA Chairman. "Numerous studies show that arts programs for youth are an effective way to decrease violent and delinquent behavior and to encourage academic success."
 
The Pueblo of Pojoaque will use its grant to support sequential arts instruction in pottery, sculpture, weaving and other art forms for the Pueblo's children and youth. Working with the Pueblo of Pojoaque Housing Corporation and the Pueblo's Boys and Girls Club, the Poeh Center will develop curriculum that reflects Tewa culture while addressing U. S. Department of Education benchmarks and goals.
 
"Few young people who live in public housing have access to sustained, high quality arts instruction. Through Creative Communities, we can give them a chance to play an instrument, to paint, to read poetry or to dance so that they might learn to be creative and to find creative solutions for themselves and the communities in which they live," said NGCSA Executive Director Lolita Mayadas. "This is about more than community revitalization-it's the revitalization of the human spirit."
 
The NEA is an independent agency of the U. S. Government created by Congress in 1965 to benefit all Americans. Its mission is to serve the public good by nurturing human creativity, supporting community spirit, and fostering appreciation of the excellence and diversity of our nation's artistic accomplishments.
 
HUD, an agency of the federal government, awards more than 2.4 billion in grants each year through national competitions. These grants go to local and state governments, non-profit and faith-based organizations, veterans service organizations, public housing agencies, Indian tribes and others to carry out a variety of HUD community and economic development programs.
 
NGCSA is the national service organization for a diverse constituency of non-profit, non-degree granting institutions located in urban, inner-city, suburban and rural communities throughout the U. S. The Guild's mission is to foster and promote broad access to high quality arts education designed to meet community needs. To that end it provides service, advocacy and leadership for community arts education organizations. The Guild currently has 290 members in 44 states including one in Canada and Bermuda.
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Arts of the Americas Institute and Native American Studies
The Arts of the Americas Institute of the University of New Mexico received a $26,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop and implement two-day workshops, which will facilitate "an exchange of knowledge between museum practitioners in Native American communities and scholars from the UNM campus," according to Rebecca Hernandez who was hired as Project Coordinator. Ms. Hernandez also teaches museum courses in both the Art History Department and Native American Studies Department. She is charged by the UNM Arts of the Americas Institute to develop curriculum for Museum Studies courses with a strong Native American component. Hernandez will be on the road this spring presenting museum studies workshops at New Mexico tribal museums and cultural centers.
 
Another collaboration with the Native American Studies Department has provided students with access to high quality art instruction in pottery by Mrs. Pamela Lujan-Hauer. Mrs. Hauer is from Taos Pueblo and has been a professional potter since receiving her Associate of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts. This class is provided to students in the surrounding Pueblo communities of Acoma, Isleta, Laguna, Sandia, and Santa Ana who found it hard to commute to Pojoaque for this same class. This is a three-hour credit class, which meets on Fridays from 9:00 to 11:00 a. m. at the UNM Contract Archaeology Laboratory. This course is co-sponsored by the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies.
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