National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (Arts Endowment) is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America.
Funding Opportunities
National Endowment for the Arts funding opportunities
The National Endowment for the Arts offers grants for organizations for specific projects and to individuals in the areas of creative writing and translation. Grant opportunities include:
- Grants for Arts Projects in Arts Education support projects for pre-K–12th grade students, the educators and artists who support them, and the schools and communities that serve them. The Arts Endowment supports three types of projects:
- Direct learning grants support arts instruction for students, generally pre-K through 12th grade, that result in increased knowledge and skills in the arts, helping them reach their full potential.
- Professional development grants build the capacity of urban and rural classroom teachers and teaching artists to effectively teach and measure student learning in the arts.
- Collective impact grants transform schools and communities by providing access and engagement in the arts for all students through collective, systemic approaches. Collective Impact projects create lasting systems change tailored to community needs, fundamentally altering the ways in which the components and structures of a system behave and interact over time.
- Research Grants in the Arts grants support research that investigates the value and/or impact of the arts, either as individual components of the U.S. arts ecology or as they interact with each other and/or with other domains of American life. A listing of working papers, publications, and presentations that so far have resulted from Arts Endowment research grants in the area of education are available here.
- Research Labs funds transdisciplinary research teams grounded in the social and behavioral sciences, yielding empirical insights about the arts for the benefit of arts and non-arts sectors alike. One of the areas of special interest is the arts, creativity, cognition, and learning.
Selected Programs and Initiatives
- Poetry Out Loud: A partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the state arts agencies, Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance. Poetry Out Loud offers educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country.
- Shakespeare in American Communities: A national theater program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest bringing performances and related educational activities to audiences across the country. The program supports high-quality, professional productions of Shakespeare’s plays and related educational activities for middle and high school students in underserved schools throughout the United States.
- Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge: A national competition for high school students who have a passion for writing songs that could be part of a musical theater production. Partnering with the National Endowment for the Arts is the American Theatre Wing along with collaborators Disney Theatrical Productions, Concord Theatricals, and the NMPA S.O.N.G.S Foundation.