The Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA).
Donor Name: Mid-America Arts Alliance
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant | Matching Grants
Deadline: 01/15/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant program aims to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for military service members and veterans exposed to trauma as well as their families and caregivers through experiences of art or art making.
Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant Program projects should engage military-connected individuals through experiences of art or art-making with one or more of the following participant outcomes in mind:
- Creative Expression: Participants have a better understanding of themselves and others by creating or engaging with art.
- Social Connectedness: Participants have supportive relationships in their life and a sense of belonging to a community.
- Resilience: Participants feel they can rebound from stress, unexpected events, or life’s challenges.
- Independence and successful adaptation to civilian life: Participants have both an individual and shared sense of purpose, as well a positive self-worth, that supports adapting and readjusting to civilian life.
This grant program also seeks to advance the capacity of the applicant and its partner(s) in one or more of the following ways:
- Networked Organization: Grantees build networks and partnerships that support the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs for participants leading to stronger outcomes for participants.
- Strengthened Capacity: Grantees build their capacity to design, implement, and evaluate programs that meet the need of participants
- Increased Value of the Arts: Grantee partnerships and activities lead to an increased understanding of the value and impact of the arts across local participating networks and communities.
Successful applicants have included:
- Arts nonprofits with a mission that focuses on serving military communities
- Performing arts nonprofits (theaters, dance companies, musical groups) looking to expand their mission to include programming for military communities
- Military and veteran-serving nonprofits expanding their services to include the arts
- Municipal and regional arts centers expanding and designing course offerings for military communities
- Community radio stations
- Universities that include community engagement in their arts, health, and military programming.
What Creative Forces provides?
- Matching grants of up to $25,000 for one-year advanced projects
- Matching grants of up to $10,000 for one-year emerging projects
- Matching grants of up to $50,000 for two-year advanced projects
- Opportunity to regularly connect and learn with fellow organizations across the country who provide arts engagement activities to military communities
- Opportunity to attend an annual in-person convening of grantees, subject matter experts, and Creative Forces stakeholders
- One-on-one consultations and cohort workshops with experts in evaluation and data collection.
Eligibility Criteria
The Applicant Organization must:
- be a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)3, U.S. organization, a unit of state or local government, or a federally recognized tribal community or tribe located in the U.S. (including the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories as well as the Native nations that share that geography);
- have either a minimum of three years’ experience:
- programming for/with military communities or
- presenting/producing arts-based projects;
- have completed a three-year history of programming prior to the application deadline. Programming is not required to have taken place during consecutive years. If your programming was affected or suspended due to COVID-19, you may reference 2020 or 2021 programming that was canceled or reimagined due to the pandemic. Virtual programming, planning, and COVID-19 recovery activities are considered to be programming. You may also choose to list arts programming from a recent year other than 2020 or 2021. For the purpose of defining eligibility, “three-year history” refers to when an organization began its programming and not when it incorporated or received nonprofit, tax-exempt status;
- compensate all professional artists or supporting professional personnel at no less than the prevailing minimum compensation in accordance with Part 505 of Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
- apply directly on their own behalf. Applications through a fiscal sponsor/agent are not allowed;
- have a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), created in the System for Award Management [SAM.gov],
- be in good standing with M-AAA, the NEA, and all other federal agencies, with no delinquent reports and/or grant documents;
- commit to M-AAA’s Grantee Assurance of Compliance and Federal Suspension and Disbarment Policy; and
- agree to acknowledge M-AAA and the NEA in all programs and press materials related to the project if funded.
For more information, visit M-AAA.
