There have been times in years past when Lincoln Center’s 11 constituent arts groups were better known for infighting than cooperation, but on Tuesday they banded together to release an unusual joint statement urging the federal government to save the National Endowment for the Arts, which the Trump administration has considered eliminating.

The groups — which generally get only very tiny fractions of their funding from the endowment — argued that it serves an important function that goes beyond the dollars it distributes: attracting private philanthropy and “providing early funding to get projects off the ground or helping to create or expand promising initiatives to achieve greater reach and impact.”

“The total cost of the N.E.A. is less than one dollar a year for every American,” said the statement, which was signed by the leaders of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the School of American Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “But because it is so successful and its imprimatur so prestigious, every dollar the N.E.A. contributes leads to nine additional dollars being donated from other sources.”

The statement does not mention President Trump by name, but in an echo of his “Make America Great Again” slogan, it states: “A great America needs that kind of return.”