Timeline of NEA Highlights

Find a highlighted grant or project for each year of NEA’s history from the thousands of grants we award annually. Complete lists of grants can be found in the Annual Reports from 1965 - 1997 and on our Recent Grant Search page from 1998 to the present.

2020

Native man with hair in braid, wearing colorful traditional clothes, at a microphone on stage.
Native Arts & Culture: Resilience, Reclamation, and Relevance, a first-of-its-kind national convening that was hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Native Arts & Cultures Foundation in February 2020, brought together members from more than 40 tribal nations as well as the heads of several federal agencies.

2021

graphic of performing arts buildings and images representing different art forms
In 2021, the NEA received $135 million through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) to help the arts and culture sector recover, rebuild, and reopen.