Deadline: 27-May-24
Applications are now open for the Impact Grants to help artist-led grassroots organizations with community-driven approaches towards using arts for social change, particularly those offering support to emerging artists from under-recognized groups.
The grants are unrestricted, reducing financial uncertainties for these organizations, and enabling them to expand their reach.
The Impact Grant is a program created by The Supporting Act Foundation to support underfunded grassroots arts organizations that have a community-driven approach in topics that relate to the use of arts for social change, and are working with emerging artists from underrecognized or marginalized groups.
This grant program is built on extensive research into the challenges that emerging artists are facing in Europe, and into alternative philanthropic approaches. They learned that reducing financial uncertainty for artist-led organizations is key in achieving long-term and systemic change in the arts. It is also a way of creating conditions for a political, cultural, and economic power shift, helping build stronger communities and achieve positive impacts across the creative ecosystem.
Purpose
- To help cover general operational costs and any other costs considered critical to successfully developing activities
What are they offering?
- They are offering 12 unrestricted grants of €25,000- per year, to be awarded over a two-year period (commencing September 2024), adding up to a total of €50,000- per organization. There is no restriction on how you choose to spend your grant. They are intended to help cover core costs, including salaries, but can also be used for any other costs you consider critical to successfully developing your organization’s work.
- They are also offering non-financial support in the form of networking opportunities and social media promotion. This includes access to a network of peers and promotion on the advertising/editorial platforms of the funding partner WeTransfer, helping to connect your organization with others working on similar issues or with similar communities in other countries.
Eligibility Criteria
- Before preparing your application, please take care to check that your organization meets the following criteria. If selected for a grant, they will request documents to validate that the organization you represent is:
- Led by people who self-identify as artists
- Clearly using arts for social change
- Registered as a non-profit organization in the Netherlands, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain, or Italy, between 2019 and 2023.
- Note: Organizations registered as a non-profit entity in other countries can also submit an application if they can provide a letter of intent from a fiscal sponsor registered as a non-profit in one of the above-mentioned countries
- Able to provide a bank account number in the name of the organization or of a fiscal sponsor in one of the countries listed above
- Running with a total annual budget not greater than €125,000 (or equivalent in local currency) in the current year (2024)
- In a clear situation of underfunding, which refers to a gap between its operating costs vs. its confirmed income of at least 20% of its annual budget
- Able to provide publicly available evidence of at least one project with a clear approach to community engagement in topics related to the use of arts for social change during 2023
- This open call is not for individuals, commercial organizations, ongoing projects or project proposals, or current or past grantees of The Supporting Act Foundation.
- Note for applicants from previous open calls: If you have applied in the past but were unsuccessful, you may apply again this year as long as your organization meets all the eligibility criteria.
For more information, visit The Supporting Act Foundation.