National Endowment for the Arts gives $103m in grants to organisations across the US

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded more than $103m in grants in its second major funding round of fiscal year 2023.

Organisations in every single US jurisdiction and all 50 states will receive NEA funding, which is disbursed in three gifting categories: Grants for Arts Projects (GAP), the agency’s largest programme, which targets project-based, community-minded initiatives; Our Town, the NEA’s creative placemaking programme, which supports partnerships involving local government entities and non-profits; and State and Regional Partnerships, which bolster local arts agencies and organisations.

“These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design,” Maria Rosario Jackson, the chair of the NEA, said in a statement.

The NEA’s Grants for Arts Projects initiative will support 1,129 projects for 2023, totaling over $31m in funds. Among the exhibitions receiving GAP funds are an upcoming exploration of Black identity and the medium of collage at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, and a survey show of works by Dominican American artist Firelei Báez at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswich, New Jersey, will receive $60,000 to help mount an exhibition of contemporary Native American art and publish an accompanying catalogue, and the Portland Art Museum in Oregon will receive $55,000 to present Africa Fashion, a travelling exhibition organised by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Under the “Our Town” umbrella, the NEA has pledged over $4m to a variety of public-facing initiatives. Among those are Prison Communities International (also known as Rehabilitation Through the Arts), which will receive $32,000 for a visual arts programme and exhibition opportunity for incarcerated people in the New York State prison system. The group Services to Enhance Potential in Dearborn, Michigan, will receive $20,000 to support a series of professional development programmes dedicated to artists with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

Through its State and Regional Partnerships funding, the NEA will give upwards of $67m to a wide range of local programming. Beneficiaries include the American Samoa Council on Arts, Culture & Humanities, which will recieve $373, 695, and New Mexico Arts, operating out of Santa Fe, which will receive $918,600.

Last January, the NEA announced its first round of funding for fiscal year 2023, totalling more than $34m. According to a report released by the NEA and the Bureau of Economic Analysis last March, the arts and culture sectors made up 4.4% of the US economy, or more than $1 trillion in economic activity, while employing nearly 4.9 million people.