The Art Project grant program provides nonprofit organizations with funding to stimulate and encourage the creation, performance, and appreciation of the arts in the region.
Donor Name: Southwest Minnesota Arts Council
State: Minnesota
County: Selected Counties
Type of Grant: Grant | Matching Grants
Deadline: 07/15/2026
Size of the Grant: $1000 to $10,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Art Projects may include, but are not limited to:
- Music, dance, and theater productions by community groups
- Productions by professionals brought into the community
- Visual art exhibits
- Readings by authors
- Arts classes for community members of all ages (excluding projects in schools)
- Public art
- Arts festivals
Funding Information
- Art Project grants are available for up to $10,000.
Geographical Areas
Applicant organizations must be located within the SW MN Arts Council service region, consisting of eighteen counties (Big Stone, Chippewa, Cottonwood, Jackson, Kandiyohi, Lac qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, McLeod, Meeker, Murray, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Renville, Rock, Swift, and Yellow Medicine counties) and two tribal nations (Pezihutazizi/Upper Sioux Community, Cansayapi/Lower Sioux Community). They acknowledge that the Southwest Minnesota region occupies the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Dakota people.
Eligibility Criteria
The Art Project grant program is open to nonprofit organizations as described in Section 501 (c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code with Articles of Incorporation on file with the State of Minnesota or official units of city, county, or state government of the State of Minnesota. Public schools may apply if they have a community project.
Ineligibility
The following activities and organizations are NOT eligible for these grants:
- Applications that do not have an art focus.
- Activities of a for-profit project, organization, or business.
- Applications that are primarily for educational projects within a school system.
- Payment of costs for projects that will take place outside the geographic boundaries of the state of Minnesota or costs related to travel outside the state of Minnesota, including performer, artist, or consultant travel.
- Costs for relocating the applicant’s legal address/residence outside the state of Minnesota.
- Projects for which artists are required to pay excessive entry or exhibition fees in order to participate.
- Requests for new building construction, purchase of real estate, or endowment funds.
- Fundraising events. Grant funding should allow projects to break even, not make a profit.
- Activities which are not open to the public. Projects must be inclusive and accessible in their process and/or final product, considering economic, geographic, and physical accessibility, as well as the cultural, racial, ethnic, age, and gender make-up of the community.
- Activities essentially for the religious socialization of the participants or audience.
- Activities that attempt to influence any state or federal legislation or appropriation.
- Applications submitted for the purpose of regranting, lobbying, or scholarships.
- Projects that don’t provide timely promotion of the project throughout the SMAC region with use of the proper funding credit line and logo.
- Requests for funds to account for deficits in projects or programs begun prior to the project’s earliest start date. In other words, payment of debts incurred before the grant activities begin or outside of the grant project scope of activity.
- Applications in which funds are to be used to match other SMAC grant projects.
- Budgets that include general contingency expenses.
- Budgets exceeding 90% of the total project’s cash expenses in combined support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and SW MN Arts Council.
- Applicants with past due SMAC final (or other) reports.
For more information, visit Southwest Minnesota Arts Council.
