Emergency Resources

  • Actors Fund: national human services organization (with a Chicago office) that provides emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, senior care, secondary career development. These services are designed for performing arts and entertainment professionals.
  • Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Emergency Grant: intended to provide interim financial assistance to qualified artists whose needs are the result of an unforeseen, catastrophic incident, and who lack the resources to meet that situation. 
  • AGMA Relief Fund: The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) Relief Fund provides support and temporary financial assistance to members who are in need. 
  • Alliance of Artists Communities: offers a list of emergency relief programs.
  • Americans for the Arts (AFTA): is regularly updating this page about national news and resources during the COVID-19 outbreak.
  • Artists' Charitable Fund: assists American artists living anywhere in the United States by paying a portion of their medical / dental / eye-care bills. 
  • Artists' Fellowship, Inc.: provides emergency aid to professional fine artists and their families in times of sickness, natural disaster, bereavement or unexpected extreme hardship.
  • Blues Foundation: special fund provides immediate resources to full-time blues musicians whose revenue streams have been severely diminished by the current coronavirus pandemic. 
  • CERF+ (Craft Emergency Relief Fund): provides rapid relief and career recovery loans through their own grants (for artists working in craft disciplines) as well as a list of emergency resources for artists in other disciplines.
  • Chicago Federation of Musicians: emergency financial relief for members in good standing of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Local 10-208. Specifically, the fund will supply financial relief to those members affected by the loss of work and wages as of 03/12/20 – 05/17/20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Chicago Theatre Workers Relief Fund: developed by the League of Chicago Theatres and The Saints, this fund is intended to help Chicago area theater professionals replace lost income due to theater closures.
  • Common Field COVID-19 Resources: an open-source list designed for the artist organization field.
  • Creative Capital: offers a list of resources for artists and arts organizations affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
  • Creator Fund: organized by ConvertKit, this fund helps creators in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Emergency Grant for Curators: administered by the Kinkade Family Foundation, this grant is intended for curators who have a venue secured for a project and are greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Equal Sound Corona Relief Fund: for musicians who have lost income from gigs cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant: provides grants to visual or performing artists who have unanticipated, sudden opportunities to present their work to the public when there is insufficient time to seek other sources of funding, or incur unexpected or unbudgeted expenses for projects close to completion with committed exhibition or performance dates.
  • For the People Artists Collective: offering emergency microgrants of up to $500 to Illinois-based artists and freelancers of color whose income has been affected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Freelance Artist Resources: an aggregated list of free resources, opportunities, and financial relief options available to artists of all disciplines.
  • Jazz Foundation of America: a musician's emergency fund provides housing assistance, pro bono medical care, disaster relief, and direct financial support in times of crisis.
  • Joan Mitchell Foundation: provides emergency support to US-based visual artists working in the mediums of painting, sculpture, and/or drawing, who have suffered significant losses after natural or man-made disasters that have affected their community. 
  • Musicians Foundation: provides one-time assistance to professional musicians in the US for periods of acute need (e.g. medical crisis, crime victimization, catastrophic events, etc.)
  • National Coalition for Arts' Preparedness & Emergency Response (NCAPER): a voluntary task force of national, regional, state, and local arts organizations, public agencies, and foundations, NCAPER helps ensure that artists, arts/cultural organizations, cultural funders, and arts businesses have the capacity and ability to respond effectively to disasters and emergencies affecting the arts and culture sector.
  • New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA): offers a list of emergency relief resources.  
  • Pillars | Relief Fund for Muslim Artists & Activists: emergency grants of $500 for individual artists and activists who identify as Muslim and who are in the United States.
  • Rauschenberg Emergency Grants: beginning in May 2020, in partnership with New York Foundation for the Arts, this national program will provide visual and media artists and choreographers with one-time grants of up to $5,000 for medical emergencies. 
  • Statera: offers an Emergency Response Directory for artists during COVID-19 that covers topics such as advocacy, social justice action, travel/visa information, funding, best practices for online teaching/learning/gathering, etc.
  • Sweet Relief: created a donor-directed fund with a limited amount of support to be used specifically for musicians and music industry workers affected by the coronavirus.
  • The Dancers Fund: provides financial assistance to dance professionals dealing with critical health issues creating a significant financial, emergency, or catastrophic hardship. 
  • The Haven Foundation: provides financial assistance to artists who have a health crisis; grants are one-year, and the financial amount provided is to the discretion of the Foundation.
  • WomenArts: offers a list of emergency funding for artists working in all art forms.

Funding Search Engines & More

Local Grant Opportunities

National Grant Opportunities

  • A Blade of Grass: an annual fellowship that includes project support for artists who are working in leadership roles and in partnership with communities to enact social change.
  • Aaron Copland Fund for Music: three grant programs in support of contemporary American music, including for recording, performing ensembles, and more.
  • Aaron Siskind Foundation: individual photographer's fellowships to support and encourage contemporary artists working in the photographic field.
  • Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation: individual support grants to painters, sculptors, and printmakers who have been creating mature work for at least 20 years. They also provide Emergency Grants for mature artists (see below).
  • Alexia Foundation: production grants to students and professional photographers.
  • Artadia: grants on a rotating basis to visual artists in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
  • Barbara Deming Memorial Inc. Fund: provides grants to individual feminists in the arts (writers and visual artists).
  • Bennett Prize: award for women painters who paint in the figurative realist style and have not yet reached full professional recognition.
  • Bloom Fund: provides unrestricted $1,200 grants in visual arts, literature, small business, non-profit, research, and education for individuals who identify as black, indigenous, and/or person of color. 
  • Creative Capital: project grants for artists and arts writers in various disciplines on a rotating basis.
  • Harpo Foundation: grants for visual artists; new work project grants for organizations; Native American fellowships; and Emerging Artist Residency Fellowships.
  • John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: annual fellowships are for individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.
  • Lewis Prize for Music: annual award to leaders in diverse and vibrant communities who create positive change by investing in young people through music.
  • MAP Fund: supports performance projects by artists that question, disrupt, complicate, and challenge inherited notions of social and cultural hierarchy across the American landscape.
  • Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation: supports performances by American artists at important cultural festivals and arts marketplaces around the globe.
  • National Dance Project Production Grant: offered by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), these production grants provide funds for the creation and U.S. touring of new dance works.
  • National Theater Project Grants: New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) offers four different project grants to theater artists.
  • New Music USA: supports individuals and organizations with project-support grants, which cover "any kind of activity that involves new music getting out into the world through a live performance or recording."
  • Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc.: grants for artistic merit and financial need to visual artists who are painters, sculptors or artists who work on paper, including printmakers.
  • Princess Grace Awards: grants for emerging theater, dance, and film artists who are at the outset of their careers or at early stages of professional development.
  • Puffin Foundation: grants to artists working in a variety of disciplines, with an emphasis on supporting art that educates the public on topical issues.
  • Relentless Award: annual cash prize awarded to a playwright in recognition of a new play.
  • Sustainable Arts Foundation: grants to individual artists and writers with children.
  • Vilcek Foundation: awards to immigrant artists in theater.

Crowdfunding

There are multiple opportunities available to artists who seek to fund projects through crowd-sourcing initiatives. See the following for a selection of resources.

Tips from 3AP Artists on Crowdfunding
[DOWNLOAD PDF]

Fiscal Sponsorship

Some resources about fiscal sponsorship:

A selection of fiscal sponsorship programs: