The Cultural Facilities Fund supports Seattle arts, heritage, cultural, and arts-service organizations with their facility projects.
Donor Name: City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture
State: Washington
City: Seattle
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/05/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The goal is to create better access for people who have been unfairly excluded from owning, managing, or leasing property. They know that communities most affected by structural racism and oppression have had the least access to controlling cultural spaces, so it focusing on projects that work to change this.
The Cultural Facilities Fund supports capital projects that improve Seattle’s arts and cultural spaces in significant and lasting ways. This grant helps arts, heritage, cultural, and arts-service organizations tackle historical inequities. It focuses on meeting the needs of communities most affected by structural racism and oppression, while also promoting accessibility and inclusion within these organizations and across the city.
Funding Information
Applicants may request up to $50,000 to support direct project expenses. Selected awards may be less than requested amounts.
- Applicants may submit for one of two tiers of funding.
- In Tier One, applications for up to $25,000 will be considered.
- In Tier Two, applications for greater than $25,000 and up to $50,000 will be considered.
Grant Period
Begin after January 2026 and be completed before December 31, 2027.
Eligible Expenses
- Capital expenses for an arts, heritage, or cultural space project
- This includes pre-capital expenses, such as Feasibility Studies, Design and Engineering Services, or Project Management
- Traditional capital expenses such as material purchases, construction labor, tenant improvements, etc.
- Property acquisition
- Emergency or unexpected repairs (including vandalism)
- Staff salaries as directly related to the capital project (for instance, a percentage of an executive director’s salary, equal to their time dedicated to the capital project).
Eligibility Criteria
- You must be an incorporated Seattle-based art, cultural, heritage, or arts-service organization.
- You may be incorporated as a not-for-profit organization or be fiscally sponsored by a nonprofit.
- You may be incorporated as a for-profit organization. But your gross annual revenues for the most recently completed fiscal year may not exceed $5,000,000.
- You must represent communities most impacted by structural racism and oppression, and/or demonstrate a commitment to being an anti-racist organization through an intersectional lens.
- You must have at least a three-year history of providing public benefit to Seattle residents.
- Site control:
- For “pre-capital” expenses, such as feasibility studies, architectural or engineering services, no site control is required.
- For facility improvement, building renovations, and other explicitly capital projects, you must control the facility through ownership or a lease (at least five (5) years of site control, which can be a combination of years remaining on a lease and a unilateral option to extend).
- You must demonstrate a record of on-going artistic or cultural accomplishments in Seattle.
- You must have a Federal Tax ID number, City of Seattle Business License, and be based in the city of Seattle.
For more information, visit SOAC.
