NEA FY 2025 Grant Opportunities Now Available

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is proud to support the nation’s arts sector with grant opportunities so that together we can help everyone live more artful lives. Grant guidelines and application materials are now available for two of the NEA’s grant opportunities for organizations: Challenge America and Grants for Arts Projects (GAP). These grants support specific projects in any part of the nation’s 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. jurisdictions.

“Artful lives” is an inclusive concept encompassing everything from the creation, presentation, and consumption of art, to active arts engagement by all people through making, teaching, and learning in our everyday lives. The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives. The NEA is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and fostering mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all individuals and groups.

The NEA welcomes applications from first-time and returning applicants. Eligible applicants include nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) U.S. organizations, units of state or local government, and federally recognized tribal communities or tribes. Applicants may be arts organizations, local arts agencies, arts service organizations, local education agencies (school districts), and other organizations that can help advance the NEA’s goals.

See below for additional details on the NEA’s grant opportunities and information about applicant resources.

Challenge America

Challenge America grants offers support primarily to small organizations for projects to reach historically underserved communities with rich and dynamic cultural identities. This program may be a good entry point for organizations that are new to applying for federal funding. Grants are awarded in all artistic disciplines for a wide variety of arts projects.

Challenge America features an abbreviated application, a robust structure of technical assistance, and grants for a set amount of $10,000. Grants require a cost share/match of $10,000 consisting of cash and/or in-kind contributions. Total project costs must be at least $20,000 or greater.

Application Deadline: April 25, 2024, for projects taking place beginning in 2025.

Sign up for a guidelines webinar on Wednesday, February 28, 2024, at 3:00 pm ET. (All webinars are free to attend; however, registration is required. Webinar recordings will be posted shortly after the presentations.)

NEA staff will also offer informal "office hours" style Q&A Zoom sessions to answer questions about the FY 2025 Challenge America guidelines, application process, and deadlines; visit arts.gov/events for more details and to register.

Grants for Arts Projects

Grants for Arts Projects provides expansive funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and culture ecosystem. Grants are available for arts projects in a wide variety of artistic disciplines.

We encourage projects that seek to accomplish any of the following:

Contribute to a healthy and thriving local, regional, state-wide, and national arts and culture ecosystem.
Elevate artists as integral and essential to a healthy and vibrant society.
Celebrate the nation’s creativity and/or cultural heritage.
Facilitate cross-sector collaborations that center the arts at the intersection of other disciplines, sectors, and industries.
Support arts projects with a focus on advancing the health and well-being of individuals and communities.
Invest in organizational capacity-building and leadership development for arts organizations, arts workers, and artists.
Support existing and new technology-centered creative practices across all artistic disciplines and forms, as well as build arts organizations’ capacity to serve a broad public by providing access, training, and other resources to engage with digital technologies.
Address, develop creative work exploring, or reflect on the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI), in a way that is consistent with valuing human artistry. Projects may include artistic work, from across all artistic disciplines, that improves the public’s awareness or understanding of the responsible use of AI in the field of arts.
Originate from or are in collaboration with the following constituencies encouraged by White House Executive Orders:
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities
- Tribal Colleges and Universities
- American Indian and Alaska Native tribes
- Predominantly Black Institutions
- Hispanic Serving Institutions
- Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and
- Organizations that support the independence and lifelong inclusion of people with disabilities.
To mark the semiquincentennial of the United States of America, the NEA also seeks arts projects furthering its mission of fostering and sustaining an environment in which the arts benefit everyone in the United States. The NEA is partnering with America250 to encourage arts projects that educate and engage communities in dialogue about the past, present, and future of our nation. Project examples may include public art recognizing the milestone, collaborative community arts projects exploring the nation’s identity, or retrospectives of celebrated or overlooked American artists. Projects are welcome in all artistic disciplines.

Visit the artistic disciplines webpage for each disciplines’ project types and accompanying application deadlines. Each discipline has identified the types of projects that are of greatest interest within this program as well as the characteristics of competitive proposals that provide the greatest opportunities for federal support to strengthen the nation’s arts and cultural ecosystem.

Grants range from $10,000 to $100,000. All grants require a nonfederal cost share or match of at least 1 to 1. In addition, designated local arts agencies eligible to subgrant may request cost share/matching grants ranging from $30,000 to $150,000 for subgranting programs in the Local Arts Agencies discipline.

Application Deadlines: February 15, 2024 and July 11, 2024, for projects taking place beginning in 2025.

Sign up for a guidelines webinar on Wednesday, January 10, at 3:00 pm ET. (All webinars are free to attend; however, registration is required. Webinar recordings will be posted shortly after the presentations.)

Additional discipline-specific webinars and informal “office hours” style Q&A sessions will also be available; visit arts.gov/events for more details and to register.

Resources for Applicants

As noted above, there are applicant resources available for Challenge America and Grants for Arts Projects. These include online tutorials, checklists, discipline-specific guidelines webinars, and opportunities for informal virtual office hours with NEA program staff.

Are you a first-time applicant? Applying for a federal grant is a multi-step process that is always entirely free. Visit our resource guide for new applicants to access information on required registrations, the application process, things to know before you apply, and information on managing your award.