Chorus in purple robes on stage in front of a screen.

For more than 30 years, Minnesota’s One Voice Mixed Chorus, the largest LGBTQIA+ chorus in the nation, has been building their community by raising their voices in song. Photo by Terry Gydesen

A bald Black man sitting on a porch playing a guitar

2021 NEA National Heritage Fellow Cedric Burnside in a still from the tribute film The Culture of America, available for free viewing on the NEA YouTube channel. Photo courtesy of Hypothetical Films

Drag queen in wedding dress underwater

A still from the short film Stop Being Poor. The film was screened at Queer Rebels Fest!, co-organized by the Queer Cultural Center. Image courtesy of the Queer Cultural Center

Three elderly Black men in suits playing drums, bass, and sax on stage with purple background.

2022 NEA Jazz Masters Stanley Clarke, Billy Hart, and Donald Harrison, Jr. playing Ellington's "Take the Coltrane" at the tribute concert at SFJAZZ. See the full concert at arts.gov/honors/jazz. Photo by Scott Chernis

What’s Happening at the NEA

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson

Statement by NEA Chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson on LGBTQ+ Pride Month

NEA logo: square with black text on clear background

Our Town Applicant Q&A Session

Jun 28, 2022
01:00 pm ~ 02:00 pm ET

Cover of American Artscape magazine with a photo of a Native American woman in a red and black outfit and her hands painted red.

Check out the latest issue of the NEA magazine American Artscape

A look at equity and access in the arts for Native American communities...

Featured News

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Collage of Photos of the 2022 NEA National Heritage Fellows

National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2022 NEA National Heritage Fellows

2022-2023 NEA Big Read Books stack and NEA logo

Announcing the 2022-2023 National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Communities

Group of military troops sitting in an outdoor pavilion listening to a talk

Blue Star Museums Launches Another Summer of Free Admission for Military Families

Featured Stories

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Headshot of Ann Meier Baker
Blog

Find a Way: Lessons from the Choral Life

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Podcast

Saheem Ali

Associate Artistic Director, The Public Theater
Smiling African-American man standing with arms crossed
Magazine Article

Aaron Dworkin

Telling All the Stories

Grants

The National Endowment for the Arts awards grants to nonprofit organizations, creative writers and translators, state arts agencies, and regional arts organizations in support of arts projects across the country.
Go to the Grants section »

Impact

See the impact of the Arts Endowment on your state, and how the agency's work in research, accessibility, and other areas has had a major impact in the arts and culture of the country.
Go to the Impact section »

Some Facts about the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.
Approximately 2,300 Grants

Recommended for grant awards annually in all 50 states, DC, and U.S. territories.

43 Percent

Percentage of Arts Endowment grants take place in high-poverty neighborhoods.

35 Percent

Percentage of Arts Endowment grants reach low-income audiences or underserved populations.

Some Facts from the National Endowment for the Arts

These facts are based on the most recent data (2020) from the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACPSA), which is produced jointly by the National Endowment for the Arts’ Office of Research & Analysis and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Commerce Department. The ACPSA tracks the annual economic impact of arts and cultural production from 35 industries, both commercial and nonprofit.
$876.7 billion

Amount the arts and cultural industries contribute to the U.S. economy.

4.2 Percent

Percentage of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product is accounted for by arts and cultural industries.

4.6 Million

Americans work in the arts and cultural industries on payroll.

Some Facts about the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.
48 Cents

The Arts Endowment’s annual cost to each American.

0.003 Percent

The Arts Endowment’s percentage of the federal budget.

$5.6 Billion

Amount awarded by the Arts Endowment since its beginning in 1965.

Some Facts about the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.
Around 45 Million Americans

Attend a live arts event supported by the Arts Endowment annually.

More than 39,000

Concerts, readings, and performances are supported annually.

More than 6,000

Exhibitions are supported annually as well.

Some Facts from the National Endowment for the Arts

These facts are based on the most recent data (2017) from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), a national survey conducted in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau that has allowed cultural policymakers, arts managers, scholars, and journalists to obtain reliable statistics about American patterns of arts engagement.
North Dakota

The state's residents attend live performing arts events at a higher rate than U.S. adults as a whole—with 62 percent for North Dakota residents versus 48.5 percent of U.S. adults.

Montana

Outperforms the national rate of attending art exhibits, with 33.5 percent of this state’s residents doing this activity versus 23 percent of Americans overall.

Oregon and Washington

Their literary reading rates (upwards of 60 percent) far exceed the U.S. as a whole (44 percent).

Some Facts about the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.
Approximately $8 million

Amount of funding of arts education projects annually.

77.6 Percent

Arts education projects (preK-12) that directly engage with underserved populations.

3 Times More Likely

8- to. 12-grade students from low socioeconomic backgrounds who received arts education to earn a bachelor's degree than those who did not.