Last year, for example, with social inequality such a high-profile issue, one heavyweight charitable organization, the James Irvine Foundation, chose to stop spending on the arts and switch all of its future giving toward addressing poverty.

The move has important repercussions: In 2015 the Irvine Foundation gave $15.45 million to the arts, more than a fifth of the foundation’s total grants.

So on Tuesday culture fans were given a reason to cheer when the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced a plan to spend $8 million on performing arts projects in the Bay Area over the next five years.

A panel of experts convened by the foundation will help select 50 works from artists in the Bay Area. The performances will include dance, theater, music and performance art.

“There’s much more of a demand for arts than we can hope to fulfill,” said Larry Kramer, the president of the foundation, which gets its funding from the fortune made from one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard, the pioneering computer company.