The Impact Projects Grant supports arts organizations for collaborations between California-based artist and community members to address a community-defined need.
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: 1 Year
Details:
Projects must use artistic practices to impact social issues affecting their communities, including but not limited to systemic marginalization, incarceration/justice systems, arts learning, poverty/economic disparity, health disparities, accessibility for people with disabilities, housing insecurity, violence, food insecurity, cultural/social justice, intergenerational/multigenerational learning, veterans’ issues, immigrant/refugee/asylum seeker/migrant issues, LGBTQIA+ issues, environmental sustainability, and climate change/natural disasters/climate refugee issues.
The Impact Projects purpose is to support collaborative projects that center artists and artistic practice in responding to issues experienced by historically and systemically under-resourced communities, including but not limited to, social, political, and economic inequalities. This program prioritizes California-based artists and forms of arts and cultural expression that are unique to, and/or historically rooted in, the specific communities to be served.
Program Goals
- Heal, stabilize, uplift, and transform communities
- Fund artistic projects that foster creative social change in the areas of equity and access
- Provide crucial opportunities for sustaining strong, healthy, vibrant, safe, and resilient communities in a region
- Strengthen community collaboration
- Support artistic practice and the creative expression of artists
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 the 1-year grant activity period.
- 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.
- Organizations with total revenues at or above $3 million are not eligible to apply.
- The CAC’s definition of Total Revenue is the total cash inflow from your organization’s most recently completed fiscal year. Cash inflow/income includes all earned income (ex: ticket sales) and contributed income (ex: grants, donations/contributions, one-time organizational funding, operational grants). Re-granting and pass-through funding are excluded from the organization’s total revenue calculation.
- Applicants cannot apply to this program and the Arts & Youth program; they must choose one.
Eligible Projects
- Applicant must develop and complete a project addressing the program goals within the Grant Activity Period.
- Projects must be collaboratively developed between California-based artist(s) and community members to address a community-defined need.
- Projects must use artistic practices to positively impact social issues affecting a community.
- Lead artist(s) must be California-based.
- Project planning, implementation, and measures of success/evaluation (if applicable) must include and represent the communities to be served.
- All aspects of the project must be free to community participants/audiences or affordable/accessible.
- Rates of pay for artists and arts workers supported by this grant must be appropriate to experience and comparable to fees for other local skilled workers.
- Individuals to be paid by this grant may not be full-time students in a degree program if they are receiving compensation/credit for this project.
- All CAC-funded programs, services, information, and facilities where funded activities take place, including online spaces, must be accessible for individuals with disabilities, including but not limited to individuals who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf-Blind, have difficulty speaking, have a physical disability, visual disability, developmental disability, learning disability, mental illness, or chronic illness.
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
- Arts service/network organizations with total revenue of $5 million or below
- Arts producing or presenting organizations with total revenue (TR) of $1.5 million or below.
- 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.
