On January 24, 2024, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced its first round of recommended awards for fiscal year 2024, with nearly $37 million in funding to support the arts nationwide. 16 Arizona-based arts organizations/programs are among the grantees.
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place—those that address our past and help us consider our future, integrate arts and culture in new ways into our lives and communities, and provide powerful opportunities for people throughout our nation to come together through a shared arts experience.”
Grants to Arizona organizations, programs, and artists in this funding round total $445,000.
Research Awards
Research Grants in the Arts supports research studies that investigate the value and/or impact of the arts, either as individual components of the U.S. arts ecology or as they interact with each other and/or with other domains of American life.
Diné College, Tsaile, AZ
$50,000
Purpose: To support an archival research project on the role of symbolism and architecture in establishing a place-based cultural center for members of the Navajo Nation on the Diné College campus.
Challenge America Grants
Challenge America grants are awarded in all artistic disciplines and offer support primarily to small organizations for a wide variety of arts projects that extend the reach of the arts underserved groups and communities that may have limited access to the arts relative to geography, ethnicity, economic status, and/or disability. This includes communities that have limited grant funding opportunities and/or have been underserved by national arts funding; small organizations that may face barriers to accessing grant funding; and organizations that may benefit from enhanced technical assistance resources. This program is often an entry point for organizations that are new to applying for federal funding.
City of Litchfield Park, Litchfield Park, AZ
$10,000
Purpose: To support the Litchfield Park Native American Fine Arts Festival.
Kingman Center for the Arts, Kingman, AZ
$10,000
Purpose: To support the student-led musical production, “How I Became a Pirate.”
Silambam Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ
$10,000
Purpose: To support a performing arts folk festival primarily featuring emerging South Asian artists.
Grants for Arts Projects
Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) provides expansive funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and cultural ecosystem.
Arizona Theatre Matters, Glendale, AZ
$15,000
Purpose: To support the development and production of a new play about the long-term effects of traumatic experiences.
Childsplay, Inc, Phoenix, AZ
$25,000
Purpose: To support the development of “J. Sonic and the Unknown” by Idris Goodwin.
City of Phoenix, Arizona – Office of Arts & Culture, Phoenix, AZ
$80,000
Purpose: To support a competitive grant program for individual artists.
Flagstaff Arts Council (aka Creative Flagstaff), Flagstaff, AZ
$30,000
Purpose: To support a visual arts exhibition focused on laborers and the logging industry.
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ
$30,000
Purpose: To support the conservation of a 17th-century Chinese Coromandel Screen at the Hillside Theater at Taliesin, a National Historic Landmark.
Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ
$30,000
Purpose: To support the planning phase of the reinstallation of the museum’s permanent collection.
Loft Cinema, Inc. (aka The Loft), Tucson, AZ
$30,000
Purpose: To support the annual Loft Film Fest, a touring film series, and related public programming.
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
$25,000
Purpose: To support a media arts education program focused on Indigenous youth.
Phoenix Film Foundation, Phoenix, AZ
$15,000
Purpose: To support the Phoenix Film Festival and related public programming.
Phoenix Screenwriters Association, Inc., Queen Creek, AZ
$10,000
Purpose: To support the Phoenix Emerging Screenwriters Conference.
Phoenix Theatre, Inc., Phoenix, AZ
$40,000
Purpose: To support Partners That Heal, a participatory theater program for hospitalized children and their families.
Southwest Folklife Alliance, Inc, Tucson, AZ
$45,000
Purpose: To support Tucson Meet Yourself, a folk arts festival.
Banner photo: Tucson Meet Yourself, 2018. Photo by Steven Meckler, courtesy of Southwest Folklife Alliance ©2018.
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