Chapter 2: The Grant Landscape
Around the world, countries have demonstrated with dollars that they value their artists. Canada has minimum wage guidelines for artist fees for things like exhibitions; Australia has the most artist prizes per capita in the world; in Ireland, an artist is exempt from paying income tax if their income is €50,000 or less a year; artists in Norway receive stipends; more than 80 countries offer Resale Royalties for artists.
All along, America has been immobilized by disagreement about how to fund the arts. After decades of controversy, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) stopped giving individual artist grants in 1998. Without subsidies, tax breaks, and other support for artists, we are left with artist grants as a primary source of financial support for artists outside of sales.
Government:
Some of the NEA's funding goes to city and state government organizations like arts councils that have regranting programs for individual artists. These artist grants often have cumbersome applications because artists need to prove to the government that their art does something good that is quantifiable. But they are usually quite accessible to artists in the early stages of their career.
Businesses:
There are also privately run businesses or "projects" that offer artist grants. These usually have a high application fee and lack any transparency about who is behind the company and their priorities. They also tend to have little to no career benefit but could get you some quick and easy cash, usually under $2,000.
Non-Profit Organizations:
For the most part, individual artist grants are awarded by non-profit organizations. These grants range from $1,000 to $50,000. Some are lesser known and fairly accessible (like the Puffin Foundation), and some are highly competitive (like Creative Capital).
Take Los Angeles as an example. In 2024, there was $975,000 available through open call grants to Los Angeles County artists. Of those dollars, $535,000 was available with no strings attached (unrestricted in grant lingo). The rest of the grants were tied to a project. Only one of those project grants is a government grant from the City of Los Angeles, the COLA-IMAP, which awarded $10,000 to 11 grantees, or about 11% of the total). 89% of the grants were awarded by non-profits.
These non-profits each have their own priorities, tendencies, and blind spots. They are each unique and don't follow any standards or guidelines for giving away money. This is not a criticism, just a fact. They are (I believe) all well-intentioned organizations helping to support artists.
They are also an infuriatingly small drop in the bucket. Application pools can range from a few hundred applicants for regional grants to the thousands.
With those high numbers, how are artists chosen?
Next Time: Choosing Winners
Artists need funding and career boosting opportunities now more than ever.
I can help.