Grants for Arts Projects

Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) provides expansive funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and cultural ecosystem. It is the National Endowment for the Arts’ largest grants program for organizations, with matching grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000. Designated local arts agencies eligible to subgrant may request from $30,000 to $150,000 for subgranting programs. In July 2023, the NEA received 2,129 eligible applications requesting more than $111 million in FY24 support. Following a competitive application review process, 1,135 projects are approved for funding in this round, including to first-time applicants, totaling more than $37 million in 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.

Grants for Arts Projects supports an expansive range of projects of varying sizes and scope across artistic disciplines with a focus on agency priorities: opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, the integration of the arts with strategies that promote the health and well-being of people and communities, and the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector, including the efforts of nationwide and field-specific service organizations.

Significant investments in these key areas include the following examples:

• An award to Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, New York, of $60,000 to support a grant program for individual artists in all artistic disciplines who work or live within a 100-mile radius of Troy. Grant award recipients will be selected through a competitive review process with a focus on funding underserved artists, including emerging, Indigenous, and rural artists. 
• An award to Connect Detroit in Detroit, Michigan, of $75,000 to support Detroit Excellence in Youth Arts (DEYA), an emerging collective impact initiative to develop a citywide arts education plan. In partnership with Detroit Public Schools, the initiative builds on a youth arts community assessment that identified what is needed to improve access to arts education for students in Detroit. 
• An award to Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center in Portland, Maine, of $25,000 to support New Mainers On Stage, a monthly traditional arts performance from an immigrant community in Maine. Local and regional professional artists will represent immigrant communities from Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ukraine, among other countries. 
• An award to the International Association of Art Critics, American Section in Weehawken, New Jersey, of $12,000 to support the Art Writing Fellowship, which will support emerging arts writers by pairing fellows (selected through an open call) with experienced mentors to develop works for publication on the IAAC-USA online magazine. 
• An award to Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, of $25,000 to support the week-long S.O.S. (Summer Opera/South) Boot Camp, an opera training workshop for undergraduate and graduate students. The camp will be hosted by the Jackson State University Department of Music, home of the Opera/South Company, in collaboration with participating historically Black colleges and universities.
• An award to the Madison Symphony Orchestra in Madison, Wisconsin, of $15,000 to support HeartStrings, a music therapy project. The orchestra's Rhapsodie String Quartet, with training by and participation of certified music therapists, will offer residency programs and perform interactive recitals for individuals with disabilities and other underserved communities. 
• An award to the Writers League of Texas in Austin, Texas, of $10,000 to support author visits to K-12 public schools and public libraries in rural communities across the state. The program will focus on serving rural areas where school and library resources are often not available for this type of programming.

The next deadline for organizations interested in applying for Grants for Arts Projects is Thursday, July 11, 2024. Each discipline has identified the types of projects that are of greatest interest within this program as well as the characteristics of competitive proposals that provide the greatest opportunities for federal support to strengthen the arts ecosystem. Visit arts.gov for guidelines and application resources, including a recording of the Grants for Arts Projects guidelines webinar

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