2024 Capacity-Building Grants (Massachusetts)

The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts (CFWM) is excited to launch its next round of Capacity-Building Grants.

Donor Name: Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts

State: Massachusetts

County: Franklin County (MA), Hampden County (MA), Hampshire County (MA)

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 07/12/2024

Size of the Grant: $1000 to $10,000

Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned

Details:

The focus is a capacity-building and sustainability initiative for artists who currently live or have studio space in Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties in Massachusetts.

The program pairs an unrestricted $2,500 grant with coaching, workshops, business/career building and personal financial literacy resources, and artist community-building. After being accepted into the program, grantees complete a brief onboarding call to learn more about the resources available to them.

Preference will be given to

Artists who identify as black, indigenous, or a person of color
Artists living/working in rural communities
Artists who utilize a socially-engaged practice and/or whose art engages community
Artists who are in the early to mid-stages of their careers.

Program Resources

When selected for the program, artists will receive:

An unrestricted $2,500 grant. This is not a project grant.
Business/career planning resources including a digital workbook, “Making Your Life as an Artist”, by Artists U and a workshop on planning.
Personal financial literacy resources, and a 4-part online workshop, “Understanding an Artist’s Personal Finances”, with Amy Smith & Akeem Davis, both certified tax preparers and practicing performing artists.
Two individual one-hour coaching sessions selected by the grantee, from A4A’s roster of expert trainers.
Priority access to all of Assets for Artists’ professional development workshops during the 6-month grant period (an average of 15 workshops).
Community-building with fellow artists within the Capacity-Building cohort. This will be achieved through a number of different events exclusively for the cohort, including (1) an in-person program kick-off (2) online slide-share to learn about each other’s work; (3) field trip to MASS MoCA (4) a WhatsApp group for the cohort to stay connected; (5) monthly emails to the cohort about what’s happening in the program and in the region.
The option of taking part in working groups to engage more deeply in goal-setting to create “accountability buddies” to support each other in reaching career goals.
A monthly invitation to an online or in-person meet-up with fellow artists.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible applicants are artists aged 18+ of any discipline (painters, sculptors, installation artists, new media artists, craft artisans, designers, film-makers, photographers, performers, writers, musicians, thespians, dancers, etc.) who live OR have a studio address in Franklin, Hampshire, or Hampden counties.
These funds are intended to support individual artists only.

Ineligibility