The Arts and Youth program is available to all young people in California.
Donor Name: California Arts Council
State: California
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/05/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Providing access to meaningful, culturally responsive arts experiences helps youth develop a greater sense of self, deepen their connection to their communities, and make meaningful connections across histories and cultures. By participating in the arts, youth gain the knowledge, skills, and understanding to actively take part in creative processes, projects, and pursuits throughout their lifetimes as culturally literate, engaged citizens.
Program Goals
- Increase priority population youth participation in and access to quality arts experiences and learning opportunities.
- Provide creative experiences that promote positive social and emotional development in safe, healthy, and appropriate venues.
- Engage a new generation of arts participants, advocates, and creators by supporting art programs and experiences that invite, involve, or center youth voices, narratives, and perspectives.
- Create access to culturally and linguistically responsive quality arts experiences and learning opportunities using cultural knowledge to support the cultural assets of the local community and students’ positive self-identification and respect for diverse cultures.
- Build capacity of educators and educational institutions to integrate arts learning into their teaching practices across the curriculum.
- Cultivate valuable life skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership, collaboration, communication, and positive self-expression through the arts.
Funding Priorities
- Organizations serving historically and systemically underserved communities located in the lower two quartiles of the Healthy Places Index, including rural and inland areas, as well as regions with a history of low investment from the CAC;
- First-time grantees, who have not previously received direct CAC funding (except for organizations whose only previous CAC funding was a Cultural Pathways grant); and
- Small organizations with Total Revenues of $250,000 or below.
Funding Information
Applicant organizations can request up to $25,000.
- For applicant organizations with total revenue below $250,000, there are no funding restrictions.
- For applicant organizations with total revenue above $250,000, the sum of requests during the same year of funding cannot exceed 50% of the total revenue from the most recently completed fiscal year.
- Applicants cannot apply to this program and the Impact Projects program; they must choose one.
Eligible Projects
- The project must engage youth (ages 0-25) that may not otherwise have access to or participate in arts learning activities.
- The project plan must reflect a collaborative relationship between the applicant organization, artists and/or culture bearers, youth, and the participating community.
- The anticipated project timeline must show how it will be completed on budget within the grant activity period in alignment with the program’s purpose and goals.
- The project may occur during or outside of traditional school hours and take place at arts and culture venues, schools, community centers, court/school sites, juvenile halls and camps, county-operated correctional facilities, social services agencies, and other youth-oriented settings.
- The project design must include safe, healthy, and appropriate learning and community engagement environments for youth.
- 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.
Eligibility Criteria
Organizations eligible to apply include:
- Nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3), California organizations
- Units of municipal, county or Tribal governments
- Fiscally sponsored organizations.
- Have a principal place of business in California and a California address.
- Have a minimum two-year history of consistent arts programming and/or services prior to the application deadline.
- 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.
- Eligible applicant organizations without non-profit status.
- Have “active status” with the California Secretary of State (SOS) showing evidence of “good standing” at the time of application.
For more information, visit CAC.
