The Creative Youth Development program is rooted in the CAC’s belief that arts learning is an essential tool for healthy human development and that it should be available to all young people throughout California, including but not limited to those whose lives have been impacted or interrupted by the justice system.
Donor Name: California Arts Council
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/06/2024
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Less than 1 Year
Details:
The CAC envisions that all of California’s young people are provided with meaningful, culturally responsive arts-learning experiences so that they can reach their full potential. All projects may occur during or outside of traditional school hours and should take place at arts and culture venues, community centers, court/school sites, juvenile halls and camps, county operated correctional facilities, social services agencies, and other youth-oriented settings.
Creative Youth Development is a commitment to supporting young people’s stories, ideas, and dreams through creative expression and honoring their lived experience. In order to create environments that promote Creative Youth Development, these three concepts must be present:
- Racial Equity and Social Justice
- Youth Voices
- Collective Action
Goals
Projects should address one or more of the following Creative Youth Development program goals:
- Provide social-emotional creative experiences in safe, healthy, and appropriate learning environments.
- Foster creative abilities of youth through culturally and linguistically responsive arts learning.
- Support arts programs that seek to activate youth voices, narratives, and perspectives.
- Utilize cultural assets of the local community to support positive self-identification and respect for diverse cultures.
- Empower youth through the preservation, revitalization, and/or reclamation of cultural practices.
- Cultivate the development of transferable life skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership, and collaboration.
Funding Information
- Grant Request Amount: Up to $25,000.
- Grant Activity Period: January 1, 2025 – September 30, 2025.
Project Requirements
- The applicant must develop and complete a project addressing the program’s purpose.
- All activities to be funded by the CAC must occur within the Grant Activity Period.
- The project design must provide for safe, healthy, and appropriate learning environments for youth.
- The project design must include hands-on learning in specific art forms to develop creativity, skills, and knowledge in at least one artistic and/or cultural discipline, including but not limited to:
- Dance – contemporary, hip-hop, ballet, jazz, tap, house, movement traditions and forms of all cultures
- Literary Arts – poetry, zine-making, spoken word
- Media Arts – animation, video, digital photography, film, podcasts, other forms of new media
- Music – traditional/culturally specific, folk, jazz, hip-hop, punk, classical
- Theater – devised pieces, original works, playwriting, interdisciplinary productions
- Traditional and Folk Arts – basketry, embroidery, weaving, woodcarving
- Visual Arts – murals, exhibitions, 3D, photography, sculpture, clay works, curatorial training
- If projects are tuition-based, the applicant must include a robust equity and accessibility plan that includes full scholarships and reduced fees.
- The project must include sustained activities over a period determined by the needs of the artists, youth, and the parameters of the project. This could mean intensive daily interaction over the course of one to two weeks or weekly interaction over a number of months.
- Artists(s) to be compensated and supported by this grant must show relevant experience of at least two years, be based in California, and may not be engaged in the project as full-time students in a degree program.
- If proposing therapeutic outcomes, applicants must establish the qualifications of service providers, how strategies are appropriate to the clinical and/or community arts setting, and how support is culturally responsive to participants.
- Project design and implementation must reflect a commitment to include and represent the communities to be served.
Eligibility Criteria
- Organization must have a principal place of business in CA and a CA address.
- Organizations must demonstrate proof of nonprofit status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or section 23701d of the California Revenue and Taxation Code.
- An applicant organization without nonprofit status must use a California-based fiscal sponsor with a federal 501(c)(3) designation to apply for funding.
- Units of municipal, county, or tribal governments are eligible to apply.
- Organizations and fiscal sponsors must have “active status” with the California Secretary of State (SOS) showing evidence of “good standing” at the time of application. You can verify your organization’s status by conducting a search using the SOS online Business Search tool.
For more information, visit CAC.
