Funding Sources in the Performing Arts

The Alliance of Artists Communities is an international association of artists' residencies — a diverse field of more than 1,500 programs worldwide that support artists of any discipline in the development of new creative work.

The American Folklife Center's competitive awards provide modest financial awards for scholars interested in working with ethnographic collection materials at the Library of Congress and for those individuals conducting fieldwork on topics related to the aims and scope of folklife research.

Provides both financial and advisory support to performing artists.

Candid provides a searchable online directory of grantmaking organizations.

The Foundation for Contemporary Arts awards grants to individual artists and organizations working in dance, music/sound, theater/performance art, poetry and the visual arts for projects of their own choosing.

Grants.gov is a searchable database for finding U.S. federal grants and an interface used for submitting proposals. You can search for grants, sign up for email notifications, and apply for grants through this portal.

Federal funding for the arts. In most areas, funding is limited to organizations. (Direct awards to individuals are made through NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships and NEA Opera Honors.)

NEH is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities.

The hallmark of NSAL is its National Awards Competition which is held each year in one of the following categories: art (visual), dance, drama, literature, music (voice), music (instrument) and musical theater. Participants in the National Awards Competition compete at the local chapter level for a series of monetary awards. First-place winners of the local chapter competitions are sent to the NSAL National Competition which is held each spring during the Society’s annual meeting. Participants in the National Competition compete for a first place award of $10,000, and a series of other awards that can total another $10,000 or more.

The Puffin Foundation makes grants that encourage emerging artists in the fields of art, film, music, theater, photography, and public interest whose works, due to their genre and/or social philosophy, might have difficulty being aired. Average grants are: $1,000.00 - $2,500.00