The Creative Youth Development program (formerly Youth Arts Action) 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.
Donor Name: California Arts Council
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 01/26/2023
Size of the Grant:$40,000
Grant Duration: 2 years
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. Beneficiaries of Creative Youth Development projects include youth from infancy to 24 years of age. All projects occur outside of traditional school hours, taking place in arts venues, community centers, school sites, and other youth-oriented settings.
- Children ages 0-5 and school-age youth are a priority for this program, with successful projects demonstrating the ability to cultivate positive social and emotional development, as well as promote artistic expression and creativity.
- Support for transitional individuals, ages 18 to 24, are an additional priority, with successful projects demonstrating the capacity to engage with transitional youth in relevant, dynamic, and innovative ways.
Examples of applicable projects include but are not limited to: arts projects in early learning, daycare, or foster-care environments; projects that support the transmission of traditional arts and cultural practices; youth leadership and mentorship opportunities in arts settings; and arts programming that supports workforce development and entrepreneurship.
Program Goals
Projects should address one or more of the following Creative Youth Development program goals:
- Provide social-emotional creative experiences in safe and nurturing 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
Eligible Request Amounts Applicant organizations can request up to $40,000 for the two-year grant period.
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 two-year 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
- Theatre – devised, original works, playwriting, 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 should offer enough contact time to foster learning.
- 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, weekly interaction over months, or one to two years.
- 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.
- Rates of compensation for individual artists and/or arts workers to be supported by this grant must be appropriate to experience and comparable to fees for other local skilled workers
- 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.
- All CAC-funded programs, services, information, and facilities where funded activities take place, including online spaces, must be accessible for individuals with disabilities, including but not limited to individuals who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf- Blind, have difficulty speaking, have a physical disability, visual disability, developmental disability, learning disability, mental illness, or chronic illness.
Eligibility Requirements
Applicants must comply with the requirements below. All applications must include the listed items at the time of submission in order to be considered for funding.
- California-based – Documentation of having a principal place of business in California.
- Arts programming – Applicants must have a minimum two-year history of consistent engagement in arts programming and/or services prior to the application deadline.
- 501(c)(3) organization as applicant or fiscal sponsor – Non-governmental (municipal, county, or tribal) applicant 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.
- Fiscal sponsors – An applicant organization without nonprofit status must use a California-based fiscal sponsor with a federal 501(c)(3) designation to apply for funding.
- The fiscal sponsor will provide the fiscal oversight and administrative services needed to complete the grant.
- A Letter of Agreement between the fiscal sponsor and the applicant organization must be signed by a representative from both parties and submitted with the application. A blank signature field will not be accepted. If a grant is awarded, the fiscal sponsor becomes the legal contract holder with the California Arts Council.
- A fiscal sponsor change is not permissible during the Grant Activity Period, with rare exceptions.
- Fiscal sponsors must have a minimum two-year history of consistent engagement in arts programming and/or services prior to the application deadline. (Acting as a fiscal sponsor to arts and cultural organizations is considered an arts service.) See additional information on the use of CAC fiscal sponsors.
- Certificate of good standing – Nonprofit organizations and fiscal sponsors (if applicable) 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 Creative Youth Development.
