Grants for Arts & Culture
Learn about grants for arts and culture by exploring our curated list of top arts funders below. Members can also research funding opportunities for the arts using the search tool for Grantfinder. Become a member.
Funding trends for arts and culture
An overwhelming majority of Americans value arts and culture as fundamental to their lives and their communities’ well-being, according to a poll by the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. Sixty-nine percent said the arts “lift them up beyond everyday experiences.” Even more – 86% – believe “arts and culture improve my community’s quality of life and livability.” Indeed, the arts and culture sector accounted for 4.2% of U.S. GDP in 2023 – more than agriculture, transportation, and warehousing – according to the now-threatened National Endowment for the Arts.
Arts organizations – especially museums, major ballet companies and other large, established cultural institutions – have long been top recipients of philanthropic largesse. Major donors in particular tend to support big capital projects like a new, named museum wing. But alongside that sort of status-raising arts philanthropy, there is also a vibrant ecosystem of community arts organizations receiving funding across the country, some of it from grantmakers with a particular passion for the arts, and some from place-based funders that view arts and culture as essential elements of a thriving community.
Arts, culture, and humanities philanthropy grew by 6.6% from 2022 to 2023, Giving USA reports, totaling more than $25 billion in charitable giving in 2023. Still, that represents only about 4% of overall philanthropy. Given that public funding for the arts was already scant in the United States compared to peer nations, philanthropy has been essential to supporting the arts even before the broad funding cuts of the second Trump administration.
Arts and culture are supported by many types of philanthropy. Some large grantmakers like the Mellon and Ford foundations support arts and culture broadly, while other grantmakers are devoted to particular art forms, such as dance, theater, music, creative writing, or visual arts.
ome funders give for arts and culture projects that relate to a social mission or intersecting issue — for instance, a funder whose primary mission is to advance LGBTQ equality might give to arts and culture projects that amplify LGBTQ voices. Grants for arts education in underserved communities exemplify how philanthropy fills gaps left by a public sector that has shrunk arts funding for decades.
Artist-endowed foundations like those associated with Andy Warhol and Joan Mitchell are a growing force in arts funding. Community foundations, regional arts organizations, and city and county arts and culture departments are also important grantmakers for the arts in communities across the country. All types of arts funders come together through the network Grantmakers in the Arts, which connects and informs public and private funders of arts and culture of all shapes and sizes.
In the face of sweeping cuts to federal funding for the arts, humanities, and culture in the first months of the second Trump administration, a few philanthropic organizations — notably the Mellon Foundation, Andy Warhol and Helen Frankenthaler foundations, and Bonfils-Stanton Foundation — have stepped up with emergency grants for arts and culture nonprofits.
Where are arts and culture grants going?
The largest arts and culture donations and grants go to established institutions in major metropolitan areas. Think museums, ballet companies, and symphony orchestras.
Usually at a smaller scale, arts and culture grants support community arts organizations, festivals, small presses and literary magazines, local dance troupes, music ensembles and venues, artist residencies, and many other types of arts nonprofits across the country. Support for individual artists is rare, but a few grantmakers specialize in this form of support for the arts, especially through fellowships and prizes.
Gaps in arts and culture funding
With the majority of arts and culture funding going to large institutions in big cities, there are funding gaps for all other types of arts funding, including funding for arts organizations outside of major metropolitan areas, especially in rural and remote areas; smaller arts organizations; and grants for individual artists.
Arts organizations led by and primarily serving BIPOC artists and communities have long been under-resourced by philanthropy, as Grantmakers in the Arts reports, though some progress was made as grantmakers responded to the racial justice reckoning of 2020. Now, though, with the second Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, federal funding that might have redressed historic inequities in arts funding has been frozen, and the reverberations are likely to affect arts philanthropy as well. Trump’s executive order calling for investigations of large foundations’ DEI initiatives has philanthropies of all sizes rethinking or in some cases retreating from grants dedicated to advancing inclusiveness and equity in arts and culture.
Some areas of arts and culture are at the intersection of multiple funding gaps. For example, there is an extreme gap in foundation funding for Black literary arts organizations, the nonprofit Cave Canem found. Creative writing is underfunded compared to other art forms, while BIPOC-led arts organizations are also underfunded by philanthropy.
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