Deadline: 13-Aug-21
Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (Humanities Council) and Rhode Island State Council for the Arts (RISCA) are excited to announce the RI Culture, Humanities and Arts Recovery Grants (RI CHARG), a joint program for general operating support grants for Rhode Island cultural, humanities and arts nonprofits.
The primary purpose of this grant opportunity is to support eligible nonprofits in “preventing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.” This funding has been provided to the Humanities Council by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and to RISCA by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Funding Priorities
As such, priority will be given to organizations that meet the following considerations (listed in order of priority):
- Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)-centered organizations: A BIPOC-centered organization is an organization with a mission and programming that is explicitly reflective of a community or communities of color, and where the board, staff, artists, and collaborators, include a significant representation of that community. A BIPOC-centered organization is defined by the following organizational characteristics:
- Primary mission, intentions, and practices are BY, FOR, and ABOUT art, heritages, histories, cultures and communities of color.
- Intention of the organization is to perpetuate, promote, and present art, heritage, histories, or cultural practices that are representative of a culture, a people, and/or is given form by those cultural practitioners.
- Board is majority BIPOC individuals.
- Staff is 60% BIPOC individuals.
- Organizations with annual budgets under $500,000.
- Organizations demonstrating robust diversity, equity, inclusion, and access efforts.
- Organizations demonstrating substantial adverse and ongoing impact from the pandemic.
Funding Information
- All awards made through this program will be $8,000. Applicants will fill out one application, with RISCA and the Humanities Council making funding decisions collaboratively. One non-profit may only receive one grant of $8,000 via the CHARG program from either RISCA or the Humanities Council.
- Through this program, the Humanities Council and RISCA may grant up to $968,000 in grants.
Eligibility Criteria
- The program is open to all Rhode Island-based nonprofits with 501c3 federal tax-exempt status, which fit the remaining eligibility criteria. Because of federal restrictions on this funding, RISCA and the Humanities Council cannot accept fiscal sponsors for this grant opportunity.
- To be eligible for funding from the Humanities Council, the organization must be humanities-focused. Examples of humanities-focused organizations include, but are not limited to, museums, libraries, historic sites, historical and preservation societies, community organizations that conduct humanities-oriented activities, civic engagement organizations, and cultural organizations. This focus will be determined by the organization’s mission and programmatic activities.
- To be eligible for funding from RISCA, this organization must fit RISCA’s definition of an arts and culture organization, or culturally specific organization:
- Arts and culture organization: Not-for-profit based groups that provide as their primary mission regular cultural programs or services, which may include producing or presenting a series or regular program of performances, educational programming, exhibitions, media presentations, festivals, readings, or literary publications. Producing is a primary focus on direct creation, production, performance or exhibition of arts; presenting is a primary focus on organizing, selecting or curating and contracting a series, season or festival of performances or events created by other artists and producing groups.
- Culturally specific organizations with a significant arts and cultural program are organizations that serve a specific cultural community but might not have arts and culture as their primary mission. Many of these organizations were established to serve communities that were historically (and in many cases continuously) marginalized from receiving equitable access to existing programs. Many of these non-arts organizations evolved to support their communities in holistic ways and as a result developed significant and meaningful arts and cultural programs to better serve the needs of their communities.
- Individuals, for-profit organizations, foreign entities, K-12 schools, institutions of higher education, and state and local governmental entities are not eligible for this grant opportunity.
- Participation in any other Humanities Council and/or RISCA grantmaking program will not affect eligibility for the CHARG program.
For more information, visit https://risca.online/grants/ri-culture-humanities-and-arts-recovery-grants-ri-charg/