FY2024 Our Town Guidelines Posted!

Guidelines and instructions for Our Town are now available online. Through project-based funding, the program supports activities that integrate arts, culture, and design into local efforts that strengthen communities.

For FY2024, our updated guidelines emphasize how projects that advance local economic, physical, or social outcomes contribute to long-term systems change within communities, and bring new attention to or elevate key community assets and opportunities, local histories, and a community’s unique civic infrastructure. We want to honor a wide range of traditions shaped by the lived experience of a community’s residents, including music, dance, design, crafts, fashion, cuisine, and oral expression.

We have also updated the guidelines to make the partnership requirements more flexible, in order to encourage cross-sector work and engage with stakeholders from throughout the arts ecosystem. We particularly encourage projects that are working at the intersection of arts and health or well-being, transportation or infrastructure, or climate-related challenges within a community.

These are cost share/matching grants ranging from $25,000 to $150,000, with funding starting July 1, 2024 for 1–2 year projects. The application is submitted in two parts; the Part 1 deadline is August 3, 2024. You can learn more from the guidelines on our website. Please note that application materials are also available in Spanish.

Grants for Arts Projects – July 6 Deadline

Grants for Arts Projects is the NEA’s largest grant program for organizations, providing expansive funding opportunities for communities across the nation in a wide range of artistic disciplines. Visit our website for full program details, including the application calendar and applicant resources, such as step-by-step instructions for first-time applicants.

Applications for the Design discipline are only accepted in February, but the July deadline includes most other artistic disciplines, including an opportunity to submit a second application to Media Arts, even if you submitted to Design in February. If you are thinking of applying to Media Arts, review the Media Arts funding priorities and register for the application webinar on Tuesday, May 16, at 3:00 ET. The Applicant Resources page also has a wide range of materials to help guide your application.



Design + CP Team Out and About

In late April, NEA staff showed up strong for the 2023 Cities Summit of the Americas, hosted in Denver. The NEA team was led by Chair Jackson and included Carla Canales (Senior Advisor and Envoy for Cultural Exchange), Jen Hughes (Senior Advisor for Partnerships, Expansion, and Innovation), and Maya Hering (Our Town Specialist). The program was a joint venture between the U.S. State Department, the city and county of Denver, and the Biennial of the Americas commission, and aimed to bring together local and national leaders to address a range of priorities that face communities across the Americas. Two highlights from the summit were Chair Jackson’s powerful keynote address (see remarks at ~1:01:00) at the America’s Leadership Luncheon and a conversation with poet Suzi Q. Smith, Rachel Basye of Arts Student League of Denver, and Malik Robinson of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, who offered perspectives on what is unique about the Denver arts and culture ecosystem.

Image: Chair Jackson with Poet Suzi Q. Smith, Rachel Basye of Arts Student League of Denver, and Malik Robinson of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance

American Artscape: In Celebration of Artful Lives

The latest issue of NEA’s magazine focuses on one of NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson’s centerpiece ideas—the concept of artful lives. As Chair Jackson notes in her introduction to the issue, “These first-person narratives showcase various art disciplines and examples of community engagement, and they illuminate one common theme: that to live an artful life—to connect with the arts and see the intersections with other dimensions of our lives, whether it is health, transportation, or the built environment—is essential to lifting up humankind.” Explore the issue now!

The Vilcek Foundation is seeking applications from designers for the 2024 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Design. The program offers three $50,000 awards to young, immigrant designers who demonstrate outstanding early achievement in design. Applications are due June 12. 

The American Academy in Rome recently announced the winners of the 2023-2024 Rome Prize. They include César A. Lopez and Ajay Manthripragada in architecture, David Weeks and Elizabeth Whelan in design, and Miranda E. Mote and Lauren Stimson in landscape architecture, among others. See the complete list.



We are sharing a recent article we loved in the Daily Yonder about “What Funding Arts and Culture Can Do for Rural Communities.” Through text and illustrations by graphic journalist Nhatt Nichols, the article lifts up the value of civic infrastructure and describes how “government funding and public investment” in arts and culture can offer “not only social and cultural benefits but also made a positive impact on economic development and municipal governance.” Among other projects, Nichols shares the success story of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and the creative ways they have tapped state and federal funding (including Our Town support from the NEA!).

image courtesy Springboard for the Arts