NEW YORK, NY.- Last year, when the Ford Foundation announced an initiative to give more than $100 million to arts groups run by people of color, none of the 20 initial recipients were in the Southeast.

So Suzette Surkamer, president and chief executive of South Arts, a nearly 50-year-old nonprofit in Atlanta, emailed Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, offering to share some thoughts on arts groups in the region that she and her colleagues were familiar with.

Now South Arts is receiving $3 million from Ford and raising an additional $3 million from other donors that will be distributed as grants to 12 to 15 arts groups led by people of color in the Southeast.

That program, called Southern Cultural Treasures, is a supplement to last year’s initiative, America’s Cultural Treasures, in which Ford and other organizations and philanthropists donated $156 million to bring greater resources and recognition to what were described as “Black, Latinx, Asian and Indigenous” groups.

“We have worked in the South, and we know of the deep need among arts organizations in the South where there are less philanthropic resources,” said Margaret Morton, director of the creativity and free expression team at Ford.

She added that “there is an incredibly rich culture” in the South that draws heavily on the history of Black Americans there.

Formed in 1975, South Arts is one several regional arts organizations that work as partners with the National Endowment of the Arts to provide federal support for projects that benefit local communities.

Over the years South Arts assisted local performing arts groups, but after Hurricane Katrina wrought destruction across the Gulf Coast in 2005, the organization also developed a national program to help cultural institutions prepare for natural disasters and other crises.

Last year, as part of America’s Cultural Treasures, grants of $1 million to $6 million were awarded to 20 groups that were deemed to be of national stature, including the Alaska Native Heritage Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City and the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago.

The Ford Foundation also announced last year that it would put $35 million into regional grant-making initiatives that would include matching funds from partner foundations in cities like Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Houston and be used for grants “to cultural groups of color with exceptional regional or local significance.”

Surkamer said that many groups in the southeastern area her organization covers are “persistent and amazing,” often running on shoestring budgets but having a deep impact on their communities. Because of that, she added, the grant program could make a significant difference to the recipients.

“It can give them the money to operate on an ongoing basis,” she said, calling that “incredibly important.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.