Women in Cambodian garb of blue and yellow in parade down the street, in front of a banner.

Cambodian dancers perform at the Little Mekong Night Market in St. Paul, Minnesota. Photo courtesy of AEDA

Group of musicians holding instruments seated outside all wearing white shirts.

2021 NEA National Heritage Fellow Tagumpay Mendoza De Leon and the Rondalla Club of Los Angeles 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

Dancers wearing grass skirts and floral wreaths holding bamboo sticks perform a traditional Hawaiian dance.

Students from the Hawaiian dance school Pua Ali‘i ‘Ilima perform a hula pū‘ili (split bamboo) at the Prince Lot Hula Festival in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Photo courtesy of PA‘I Foundation

Woman banging a large drum while man plays flute on stage.

Roy and PJ Hirabayashi perform during the 2011 NEA National Heritage Fellows Concert. Photo by Michael G. Stewart

Teenager crying on stage with other teenagers after winning contest.

DC state champion Amanda Fernandez is announced as the 2007 Poetry Out Loud National Champion. Photo by James Kegley

Television screen showing an elated Black girl who just won the poetry competition.

South Dakota Poetry Out Loud Champion Rahele Megosha finding out she had been named National Champion during the 2021 virtual competition. Photo by James Kegley

What’s Happening at the NEA

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson

Statement by NEA Chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

NEA logo: square with black text on clear background

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Using a Logic Model to Create Clarity

Wednesday, May 18, 2022, 3:00 - 4:00 pm EDT 

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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Poetry Out Loud logo

Finalists for 2022 Poetry Out Loud National Championship Announced

Collage of the 2021 2021 Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge Winners

Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge Winning Songs to Premiere April 23

Logo of red lines for ACPSA

New Data Show Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Arts & Culture Sector

Featured Stories

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Headshot of Asako Serizawa, who is a Japanese American woman.
Blog

In Between the Lines: A Conversation with NEA Literature Fellow Asako Serizawa

Headshot of a man.
Podcast

Daniel K. Isaac

Actor and playwright
Asian women on scaffolding in front of mural she is painting.
Magazine Article

Joy Is a Beautiful Act of Resistance

Multidisciplinary Artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya

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.