Resources: Grantseeking
As you continue your search for grants and creative funding, here is a list of funding resources for individuals and organizations in the arts.
Finding Funders
The Foundation Center
Offers Foundation Directory Online – a comprehensive database of foundation and corporate funders – and a database of funders that support individuals, as well as free classes and a library of resources. The database can also be accessed for free at Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch.
Grantspace: Finding Funders
Foundation Center’s online learning community offers webinars and tutorials about fundraising research.
General (Individuals)
Creative Capital
Individual artists with provocative, original, and relevant works from all disciplines can apply for their multi-year grants under an open application process.
Feast in Brooklyn
Public dinner which uses community-driven financial support to democratically fund new and emerging art makers. This is done through supper where diners converse with artists behind the competing ideas, and vote at the end. The artist who garners the most votes will be awarded a grant.
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
Offers emergency grants of $500 - $2,500 to artists who have sudden, unanticipated opportunities to present their work to the public when there is insufficient time to seek other sources of funding.
Franklin Furnace Fund
For emerging artists who produce avant-garde work of various mediums. Artists must live in New York City.
Jerome Foundation
Offers grants to New York and Minnesota artists in various disciplines for travel and study, as well as grants for film and video projects, and—for individuals with fiscal sponsors and organizations—grants for the creation of new work in various disciplines.
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Offers sponsorship to individual artists to do their artistic work out of the U.S.
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Funding Resources for Individual Artists
A comprehensive list of funding for individual artists, divided into various and specific disciplines.
Map Fund
Offers grants to individuals with fiscal sponsors (as well as ensembles, presenters, etc.) for performative work.
National Endowment for the Arts
Direct awards to individuals are made for literature, jazz masters, and folk and traditional arts.
New York Foundation for the Arts – Artists’ Fellowships
Awards grants to individuals for unrestricted use. Also offers fiscal sponsorship under Artspire program.
New York State Council on the Arts
Individual artists can apply with fiscal sponsors for grants in music, dance, theater, electronic media and film, and architecture projects. Also funds Brooklyn Arts Council grants for individuals in a wide range of disciplines.
Princess Grace Awards Program
Awards grants in theater, playwriting, film, dance, and choreography.
The Puffin Foundation
Grants for art that educates the public on topical issues such as environment and social justice, or topics that others may not fund. Different cycles fund different artistic media.
Sustainable Arts Foundation
Offers financial awards to parents pursuing creative work who had set aside creative pursuits because of the demands of raising a family.
General (Organizations)
Brooklyn Community Foundation – Arts for All Fund
Supports local arts and cultural organizations in Brooklyn.
Trufund Financial Services, Inc.
Offers financial loan services to small and medium-sized art organizations in New York City to be used for equipment purchase, growth phase and build-out costs. Organizations must repay loans.
General (Minority Groups)
Asian Cultural Council
Grants are awarded for research and creative projects across traditional and contemporary fields. Other grants support projects that highlight Asian-American exchange.
Native Arts and Culture
Only American Indians from state-recognized U.S. tribes, Native Alaskan, or Native Hawaiian can apply. Awards are made in all disciplines.
National Association of Latino Arts and Culture
NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant is for U.S. based, Latino, working artists in all disciplines.
Queer Art Mentorship
Support and financial assistance for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals who are based in New York City.
Women Arts
A short resource list for individual artist funding in various disciplines, some specifically for woman-identifying artists.
Visual Arts
Aaron Siskind Foundation
Offers grants for committed artists working with photography or photo-based art with no restriction on subject matter or genre. Can be contemporary or traditional works of art.
Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation
For mature artists with at least 20 years of experience in painting, sculpture, or printmaking.
Astrae Lesbian Visual Arts Fund
For contemporary lesbian visual artists using sculpture, painting, print, mixed media, or works on paper that show commitment to social justice feminism.
Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation
Offers grants to artists above 45 years old who are committed to American art but lack recognition in the field.
The Art List
Online resource page for visual artists looking for income or exhibition opportunities.
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation
For professional and presently active visual artists and printmakers who have worked over a significant period of time.
William H. Johnson Foundation for the Arts
Awards grants to emerging African-American artists.
Film and Media
Arthur Vining Davis Foundation
Provides capstone grants to complete production funding directed towards the educational nature of public television. Other areas of interest include children’s series and programs that contribute to teaching.
Cinereach
For feature-length nonfiction and fiction films with engaging storytelling, visual artistry, and vital subject matter that challenge preconceptions.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Greenhouse Funds
Funding for public broadcasters and independent producers who produce works that are beneficial to the public television community. Training and opportunities are also included in the funding for entry, advancement, or leadership to professional fields.
Fledgling Fund
For late-stage films that have audience engagement and use emerging technology that focus on social issues such as environment, female empowerment, health, and justice.
Frameline Completion Fund
For films that represent and reflect LGBT life. Applications by women, people of color, and transgender people are highly encouraged.
Independent Television Service
Finishing funds for experimental films that address the needs of underserved and underrepresented audiences.
Moxiedocs Co-Production Award
Funds for documentary filmmakers who create works on art, activism, journalism, or history that are aimed towards public awareness. Works have to be in the post-production or completed stage.
Women in Film Foundation
Offers grants, in-kind awards and consultations for films that highlight women’s role in entertainment and professional industry.
Literature
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize
Offers advance and publication grants for nonfiction projects by writers not yet recognized in the literary field.
Xeric Foundation
Provides financial assistance to self-publishing comic book creators and nonprofit organizations in the U.S. or Canada.
Theater
Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
Supports individual artists who have reinterpreted traditional elements of dance or theatre.
Henson Foundation
Offers project grants for development and production of works, and seed grants for workshopping of pieces for earlier creation. Only for live puppet theatre.
Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation
For composers, lyricists, and librettists who work in musical theater.
Music
Aaron Copland Fund for Music
Offers recording programs for composers to record, distribute, and release contemporary American music.
American Composers Forum
ACF offers grants and commissions for different types of artists, including a commissioning by individual grant and funding which supports new works by emerging composers.
Chamber Music America
Offers different awards to individuals and groups who play various types of music from classical to new music.
Metlife Creative Connections
Supports composer fees for participating in workshops, audience interaction, rehearsals, and utilization of technologies.
Dance
Dance USA
Provides a comprehensive listing of opportunities, funding, and career advancement for dancers.
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
Provides resources to find funding opportunities for contemporary dancers.
Harkness Foundation for Dance Space Grant
Offer grants for their studio space in return for acknowledgment of this grant in the new artwork created in the space. Space Grant artists are also encouraged to submit works for the Harkness Foundation’s Friday and Sunday performance series.
National Performance Network
An advocate group that also provides direct and indirect support through funding for touring artists in dance, theater, and music in the U.S.
Our Grant Program
Brooklyn Arts Council's grants strive to support local artists and small arts organizations whose work enhances the cultural climate of our borough, city, state, and nation. These awards encourage professional development, community growth, and fellowship among artists.