On June 10, 2020, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced 1,144 grants totaling over $84 million awarded to programs and projects across the country. 12 of those grants, totaling $209,000, will support work in Arizona.
“These awards demonstrate the continued creativity and excellence of arts projects across America and the nimbleness of our nation’s arts organizations in the face of a national crisis that shuttered their doors for months” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “By funding arts projects in every U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia, the National Endowment for the Arts again celebrates the opportunity to make the arts available to every corner of the country and to see how the arts can heal and unite us.”
This funding announcement, the second of 2020, includes grants awarded through three grant programsL Art Works, Our Town, and Research Grants in the Arts.
Art Works
Art Works grants support artistically excellent projects that celebrate our creativity and cultural heritage, invite mutual respect for differing beliefs and values, and enrich humanity. Matching grants generally range from $10,000 to $100,000.
For fiscal year 2020, the Arts Endowment encouraged Art Works applications for artistically excellent projects that honor the Women’s Suffrage Centennial, celebrating women’s voting rights in the United States.
Arizona Grantees:
Arizona Opera (aka Arizona Opera Company)
$20,000
Phoenix, AZ
Opera Ballet Arizona
$35,000
Phoenix, AZ
CALA Alliance
$20,000
Phoenix, AZ
Phoenix Conservatory of Music
$15,000
Phoenix, AZ
Arizona State University (aka AZ Board of Regents for Arizona State University)
$15,000
Tempe, AZ
American Literary Translators Association (aka ALTA)
$20,000
Tucson, AZ
Borderlands Theater Teatro Fronterizo (aka Teatro Fronterizo)
$20,000
Tucson, AZ
Lead Guitar (aka Lead Guitar)
$35,000
Tucson, AZ
Museum of Contemporary Art (aka MOCA)
$20,000
Tucson, AZ
Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts
$20,000
Wickenburg, AZ
Applications for these Art Works and Our Town recommended grants were submitted in summer 2019 and approved at the end of March 2020. Given the impact of Covid-19 and the time required to make project adjustments, project descriptions can be found through the Arts Endowment’s Recent Grant Search.
Research Grants in the Arts
Maricopa County Community College District, Paradise Valley Community College
$20,000
Phoenix, AZ
State Partnership Grants
Each year, the National Endowment for the Arts designates 40 percent of its grant-making budget to the state and regional arts organization through partnership agreements. Grants are awarded to the nation’s 56 state and territorial arts agencies and the six regional arts organizations. This funding enables these agencies and organizations to respond to priorities identified through public planning undertaken with their constituents, partners, and stakeholder as well as Arts Endowment objectives.
In Arizona, these funds are awarded to the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the agency’s designated folk and traditional arts partner, Southwest Folklife Alliance.
Arizona Commission on the Arts
$889,600
Southwest Folklife Alliance
$50,000
Banner Photo by Eli Burke, courtesy of MOCA Tucson.
