Grant Program Description

We Fund

Through this category, the National Endowment for the Arts seeks to make the excellence and diversity of the arts widely available to the American public through every available media platform including television, radio, the Internet, interactive and mobile technologies, digital games, and satellite. By increasing the accessibility and impact of the arts, the Arts Endowment aims to strengthen the creativity of our nation.

Grants are available to support the development, production, and national distribution of innovative media projects about the arts (e.g., visual arts, music, dance, literature, design, theater, musical theater, opera, folk & traditional arts, and media arts including film, audio, animation, and digital art) and media projects that can be considered works of art. The NEA is seeking and will give priority to artistically excellent projects that have the potential to reach a significant national audience, through their primary platform, regardless of the size or geographic location of the applicant organization. Only projects of the highest artistic excellence and merit, in both media production and subject matter, will be funded.

Projects may include high profile multi-part or single television and radio programs (documentaries and dramatic narratives); media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within an existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and interactive games. Short films, five minutes and under, will only be considered in packages of three or more. Projects may deal with any subject matter or art form, and those targeted to children and youth are welcome.

The agency encourages innovative, entertaining, compelling, and artistically crafted media projects that not only increase access to, but also enhance public knowledge and understanding of, the arts. Such projects might be multi-platform or transmedia. They may include the use of radio and television, DVDs, interactive web sites, live streaming, audio- and video-on-demand, podcasts, MP3 files, mobile, or other digital applications including games. Projects may include enhancements such as educational materials and/or foster collaborations with arts organizations, educators, and community groups. Media distribution to schools, libraries, as well as homes, and other substantive public engagement strategies will be given priority.

Applications should clearly demonstrate the organization’s ability to complete the project in a timely fashion and to achieve national distribution. Further, in order to reach the widest possible audience, this category will give priority to projects that include a well articulated social media strategy.

We Do Not Fund

Under these guidelines, funding is not available for:

• Direct grants to individuals.
• Projects that are intended primarily for local distribution.
• Media that is produced primarily for instructional purposes or primarily to accompany an exhibition.
• Media that is primarily print (e.g., books, magazines).
• Script development for dramatic narrative works.
• Documentation or simple recording of performances or events primarily for archival purposes.
• Expenditures that are related to compensation to foreign nationals and artists traveling to or from foreign countries when those expenditures are not in compliance with regulations issued by the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control. For further information, see http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ or contact the Arts Endowment's Grants & Contracts Office at grants@arts.gov.

Organizations seeking funding for media projects that are not eligible under these guidelines may want to review the Arts Endowment’s Grants for Arts Projects guidelines.

Intended Outcome

As part of its most recent strategic planning process, the NEA established four outcomes for its funding activities:

• Creation: The portfolio of American art is expanded.
• Engagement: Americans throughout the nation experience art.
• Learning: Americans of all ages acquire knowledge or skills in the arts.
• Livability: American communities are strengthened through the arts.

The agency has determined that all grants awarded under The Arts in Media category will have the following as their primary outcome:

• Engagement: Americans throughout the nation experience art.

  (Applicants also will have the opportunity to indicate a secondary outcome for their projects.)

The anticipated results for Engagement projects are direct experiences with the arts, including media arts, for the public.

Organizations will be asked to address the anticipated results in their applications. If a grant is received, grantees will be asked to provide evidence of those results at the end of their projects. Grantees will need to describe the participants’ experiences as well as the composition of the participant group. If the nature of the project does not allow for the documentation of participants’ experiences explicitly, grantees may document the composition of the participant group and numbers of participants and activities, and describe the activities used to engage the public with art. Before applying, please review the reporting requirements for Engagement.

Deadline Date

Applicants are required to submit their applications electronically through Grants.gov, the federal government’s online application system. The Grants.gov system must receive your validated and accepted application no later than 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time, on September 1, 2011. We strongly recommend that you submit at least 10 days in advance of the deadline to give yourself ample time to resolve any problems that you might encounter. The Arts Endowment will not accept late applications.

The Grants.gov Contact Center is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506