"These [new FY20 grant] awards demonstrate the continued creativity and excellence of arts projects across America and the nimbleness of our nation’s arts organizations in the face of a national crisis that shuttered their doors for months. By funding arts projects in every U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia, the National Endowment for the Arts again celebrates the opportunity to make the arts available to every corner of the country and to see how the arts can heal and unite us.” — Mary Anne Carter, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

As a part of its regular grantmaking, separate from grants related to CARES Act funding, the National Endowment for the Arts announces over $84 million for 1,144 new awards to organizations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and each of the five U.S. territories. Grants will be awarded in 13 artistic disciplines, arts research, and partnership agreements with all U.S. state and regional arts agencies.

Applications for these recommended grants were submitted to the Arts Endowment last summer and reflected the wide range of performances, exhibitions, and activities that the agency has traditionally funded. At the end of March 2020, the listed projects were approved, followed by two months of extensive technical assistance in which agency staff worked one-on-one with hundreds of organizations to adjust their projects to meet the new reality created by the pandemic. Changes include postponing activities and taking activities virtual as the examples below illustrate. As a result of this, plus additional work related to the CARES Act, project descriptions are not being included in the grant lists accompanying this announcement. The most current information for all projects will be available on the agency’s grant search tool. MORE.