Three students in a school art room , two of the students looking at a portrait of one of the students.

Students participate in arts programming at Deep Center, a creative writing and arts center in Savannah, Georgia, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Photo by Laura Mulder

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

Three male and one female Native students sitting in front of a keyboard and turned to face the camera.

Students from Chinle High School, the largest high school within the Navajo Nation in Arizona, participating in the Native American Composer Apprentice Project program. Photo by Clare Hoffman

Two girls gluing items during an arts class.

Students at Mount View Elementary School in Seattle, Washington, participate in an Arts Corps class. Photo by Amy Piñon

Tents and crowds gathered in front of the Capitol.

2008 National Book Festival on the National Mall. Photo by Tom Roster

Two students playing violin and cello on stage.

Students from the Levine School of Music at the Town Hall Education, Arts & Recreation Campus (THEARC) in the Anacostia neighborhood of DC, which is supported by the Arts Endowment. Photo by Victor Holt

A group of women on stage holding up signs in favor of women's suffrage.

StageOne Family Theatre’s production of Lawbreakers!, one of the grants awarded by the Arts Endowment in celebration of the women’s suffrage centennial. Photo courtesy of StageOne Family Theatre

What’s Happening at the NEA

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2022 Library of Congress National Book Festival

Saturday, Sept. 3, 9 am to 8 pm... Visit the NEA-sponsored Writers Studio Stage!

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Webinar on GSA’s Art in Architecture Program's Artist Commissions (New York & New England)

September 13, 2022
01:00 pm ~ 02:00 pm ET

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson

Statement by NEA Chair Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson on Women's Equality Day

Featured News

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Photos of the four honorees with text reading National Endowment for the Arts 2023 Jazz Masters

NEA Announces the 2023 Recipients of NEA Jazz Masters Honors

Collage of Photos of the 2022 NEA National Heritage Fellows

National Endowment for the Arts Announces 2022 NEA National Heritage Fellows

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

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Blog

Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Authors at the 2022 National Book Festival? 

Headshot of a woman.
Podcast

Revisiting Vanessa Hua

Author and 2020 NEA Literature Fellow
Two women in front of artwork, one dressed in black with long black hair and not smiling, the other dressed in purple and laughing.
Magazine Article

Arts as a Healing Element

Tash Terry (Diné [Navajo])/Elena Higgins (Maori/Samoan) of IndigenousWays

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.

35 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.
54 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 41 Million Americans

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

More than 36,000

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.

74.7 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.