Deadline: 6-Jul-23
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is proud to support the nation’s arts sector with grant opportunities so that together they can help everyone live more artful lives.
The arts contribute to their individual well-being, the well-being of their communities, and to their local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of their circumstances from different perspectives as they merge from the pandemic and plan for the future.
Grants for Arts Projects is their largest grants program for organizations, providing comprehensive and expansive funding opportunities for communities. Through project-based funding, the program supports opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector.
Areas of Particular Interest
- The NEA is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and fostering mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all individuals and groups. They encourage projects that address any of the following:
- Elevate artists as integral and essential to a healthy and vibrant society.
- Celebrate the nation’s creativity and/or cultural heritage.
- Facilitate cross-sector collaborations that center the arts at the intersection of other disciplines, sectors, and industries.
- Contribute to healthy and thriving local, regional, state-wide, and national arts ecosystems and arts infrastructures.
- Invest in organizational capacity-building and leadership development for arts organizations, arts workers, and artists.
- Build arts organizations’ capacity to serve a broad public through digital or emergent technology and/or support tech-centered creative practices across all artistic disciplines and forms.
- Originate from or are in collaboration with the following constituencies encouraged by White House Executive Orders:
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities,
- Tribal Colleges and Universities,
- American Indian and Alaska Native tribes,
- Predominantly Black Institutions,
- Hispanic Serving Institutions,
- Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and
- Organizations that support the independence and lifelong inclusion of people with disabilities.
Funding Information
- Applicants may request cost share/matching grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.
- Award Ceiling: $150,000
- Award Floor: $10,000
Eligibility Criteria
- The following are eligible to apply:
- Nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3), U.S. organizations;
- Units of state or local government; or
- Federally recognized tribal communities or tribes.
- Applicants may be arts organizations, local arts agencies, arts service organizations, local education agencies (school districts), and other organizations that can help advance the NEA’s goals.
- To be eligible, the applicant organization must:
- Meet the NEA’s “Legal Requirements” including nonprofit, tax-exempt status at the time of application.
- Have completed a three-year history of arts programming prior to the application deadline.
- For the purpose of defining eligibility, “three-year history” refers to when an organization began its programming and not when it incorporated or received nonprofit, tax-exempt status.
- You will be asked to provide examples of previous programming in the application. For applicants to the February 2023 deadline, programming must have started in or before February 2020; for applicants to the July 2023 deadline, programming must have started in or before July 2020.
- Programming is not required to have taken place during consecutive years.
- Organizations that previously operated as a program of another institution may include arts programming it carried out while part of that institution for its three- year history.
- Eligible organizations that received American Rescue Plan (ARP) or CARES Act funding may apply to this program as long as there are no overlapping costs during the same grant period.
- An organization whose primary purpose is to channel resources (financial, human, or other) to an affiliated organization may only apply if the affiliated organization does not submit its own application. This prohibition applies even if each organization has its own 501(c)(3) status. For example, the “Friends of ABC Museum” may not apply if the ABC Museum applies.
Ineligible
- The following are not eligible to apply:
- Individuals;
- Applications through a fiscal sponsor/agent (organizations must apply directly on their own behalf, see more information on fiscal sponsors/agents); or
- Designated state and jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) and their regional arts organizations (RAOs).
- SAAs and RAOs may serve as partners in projects. However, they may not receive NEA funds (except as provided through their designated grant programs), and SAA/RAO costs may not be included as part of the required cost share/match. SAAs and RAOs are eligible to apply through the Partnership Agreements guidelines.
- Late, ineligible, and incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.