United States Artists
/OVERVIEW: United States Artists provides unrestricted $50,000 grants to artists across eight different creative disciplines that include architecture & design, crafts, dance, media, music, theater & performance, traditional arts, writing and visual arts.
IP TAKE: United States Artists’ giving significantly funds choreography, dancers, individual artists and small arts collaboratives each year. However, this is a competitive, unrestricted grant for which grant seekers must be nominated, the nominators anonymous. The best strategy is to look through its list of previous selection panelists to get an idea of who might be connected to the process. It is not an otherwise accessible foundation given the nomination process.
PROFILE: United States Artists (USA) was established in 2005 by the Ford, Rockefeller, Rasmuson and Prudential Foundations to “invest in America’s finest artists and illuminate the value of artists to society.” Today the organization is funded by a range of foundations and individuals and has its own permanent endowment that allows its USA Fellows program to provide unrestricted grants of $50,000 each to as many as 50 creative artists each year across architecture & design, crafts, dance, media, music, theater & performance, traditional arts, writing, and visual arts. It also provides an unrestricted award of $50,000 each year to a non-artist who has made a significant contribution to the arts and to artists’ well-being.
Grants for Visual Arts, Performing Arts, and Writing
USA does not have dedicated programs for specific types of arts, so much as a large unrestricted grant opportunity available to a variety of creative fields. However, each creative field boasts its own team of panelists who oversee grantmaking and grantee support within a specialty.
Application for the $50,000 USA Fellowship is by nomination only; nominators change year-to-year and are always anonymous. All that USA will share about their nominators is that they are always a “group of arts leaders, critics, scholars, and artists who live in every state throughout the country, from small communities to major metropolises. They work in diverse practices across virtually every artistic discipline.” Applicants are accessed by a separate group of panelists who assess the applications of those who are nominated and apply; USA shares the lists of its previous panelists, which is also diverse in geography, artistic discipline and profession.
Grants for Journalism
USA primarily supports audio and visual media-based journalists under its Media category program and print-based journalists through its Writing categorization. USA defines some journalism as “art.” Journalism most likely to qualify fits within the organization’s stated values: quality, creativity, innovation, risk-taking and diversity. Creativity and innovation are two terms not always thrown around in the assessment of journalism, so they are particularly distinguishing characteristics when it comes to USA's support of journalism. This is an organization that looks for journalists to be inspirational creators.
Grants for Arts and Culture
USA also supports the Berresford Prize, an unrestricted award of $50,000 given each year to acknowledge “the remarkable administrators, curators, scholars, and producers who are building platforms and creating conditions for artists to thrive” and who have “contributed significantly to the advancement, well-being, and care of artists in society.”
Like the USA Fellowship, recipients of this award are selected by an internal nomination and review process.
Important Grant Details:
Awards are mainly given in the amount of $50,0000.
In order to be nominated for the USA Fellowship by an anonymous group of arts professionals working across the United States, grant seekers should be inclusive in their craft and community. The more collaborative they are, and the more broadly grant seekers showcase their work around the country, the more likely they are to hit on one of these anonymous nominators.
In particular, the grantees' geographic diversity reflects that it is easier for visual artists to work anywhere than for theater or dance artists, for example. The range of past visual arts awardees also reflects this.
A full list of past fellows is on USA’s website.
Submit general inquiries to USA via email at info@unitedstatesartists.org or telephone at (312) 470-6325.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS:
