Heartland Craft Guilds: Capacity Support Grants is a grant program that supports craft guilds and cultural organizations rooted in preserving and sustaining craft traditions, community-based knowledge, and hands-on making across America’s heartland.
Donor Name: Mid-America Arts Alliance
State: Selected States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 05/15/2026
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: 1 Year
Details:
Through unrestricted funding and shared learning with other guild leaders, Heartland Craft Guilds builds organizational capacity by supporting the leadership and operational systems that help organizations serve members, deepen practice, and maintain long-term stability and organizational health.
Heartland Craft Guilds is a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA), developed with support from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation. The program reflects a shared commitment to hands-on engagement with materials, mastery of technique, and the preservation, innovation, and evolution of heritage work, particularly within under-resourced and historically overlooked communities.
Funding Information
- Total funding: $180,000
- M-AAA will disburse grants of $12,000.
Grant Period
1 Year
Uses of Funds
- Staff salaries or stipends
- Rent or utilities
- Technology and infrastructure
- Supplies or equipment
- Professional development
- Membership programs
- Administrative or operational costs
Eligibility Criteria
To apply, organizations must be a guild or craft organization that:
- Focuses on craft as the skilled, hands-on creation of original, three-dimensional objects
- Is deeply connected to cultural traditions, heritage practices, or community-based knowledge
- Supports craftspeople working in media such as clay, fiber, wood, metal, glass, paper, jewelry, mixed media, and other materially driven practices
- Serves guild members, culture bearers, or heritage keepers through education, mentorship, or shared resources
- Has provided arts or cultural programming for at least three years to its members or community
- Operates with annual budgets under $500,000, including volunteer-run organizations
Heartland Craft Guilds is designed for craft guilds, member-based organizations, and cultural collectives rooted in traditional, cultural, and heritage-based craft practices; located and have an arts and culture presence in Mid-America Arts Alliance’s six-state region: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas or the Native Nations that share this geography.
- Be a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization; fiscally sponsored group; artist-centered or artist-led collective business state or federally recognized tribal government
- Have a current operating budget under $500,000
- Provide the three most recently completed fiscal years’ tax filings or profit/loss statements
- Have a Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) from SAM.gov
- Have an Employer Identification Number (EIN)
- Be willing to have at least one staff person participate in monthly cohort meetings throughout the 12-month program
For more information, visit Mid-America Arts Alliance.
