Announcing ArtsHERE Grantees in the M-AAA Region
By Sarah Mote
15 organizations in the M-AAA six-state region will be awarded more than $1.6 million in the National Endowment for the Arts Pilot Program
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is pleased to announce 112 organizations recommended for awards under ArtsHERE, including 15 organizations in the heartland. A new pilot program in partnership with South Arts and in collaboration with the other five U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, ArtsHERE is designed to expand access to arts participation across the nation.
These nonprofit organizations, each with demonstrated commitment to equity within their practices and programming, are recommended for non-matching grants of $65,000 to $130,000, totaling $12.356 million, to fund specific projects that will strengthen the organizations’ capacity to sustain meaningful community engagement and increase arts participation for underserved groups and communities. Grant recipients will also take part in peer-learning and technical assistance opportunities, and the NEA will report on lessons learned from this initiative.
“An Artful Life for Everyone”
“The National Endowment for the Arts is thrilled to provide resources to a group of exceptional organizations through ArtsHERE, a program to help deepen meaningful and lasting arts engagement in underserved communities,” said Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. “Everyone should be able to live an artful life, and ArtsHERE is an important step in ensuring we are strengthening our nation’s arts ecosystem to make this a reality.”
Historically underserved groups and communities—those whose opportunities to experience the arts have been limited by factors such as geography, race or ethnicity, economics, or disability—frequently report lower rates of participation in various arts activities than other groups do. Managed by South Arts, the NEA announced the ArtsHERE pilot grant program in 2023 in recognition that engaging in the arts is essential to individual, social, civic, and economic well-being and in response to President Biden’s Executive Order that put forward a government-wide effort to advance equity for all Americans.
Recommended grant recipients are from all 50 states, DC, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. ArtsHERE aims to address disparities in arts participation through grants that help organizations better serve and reach their communities.
Meet the M-AAA ArtsHERE Grant Recipients
Ovations+ (Tricycle Theatre for Youth) Link Up concert with children in the audience. Tricycle Theatre for Youth has been recommended to receive a 2024 ArtsHERE grant. Photography courtesy of Tricycle Theatre for Youth
Arkansas
Number of Grants: 1
Total Dollar Amount: $130,000
Ovations+, Bentonville, AR
Ovations Plus will use the ArtsHERE grant to increase arts participation and expand its educational theatre program to more primary-school students in northwest Arkansas. The grant will also be used to strengthen the program through a new music experience that reflects and serves its Spanish-speaking families. Ovations Plus produces engaging, relevant, and inclusive theatre experiences with and for young people in Northwest Arkansas.
Kansas
Number of Grants: 1
Total Dollar Amount: $130,000
Wyandot Nation of Kansas, McLouth, KS
The ArtsHERE grant supports the Wyandot Nation of Kansas expansion of their community and stakeholder engagement efforts through a traveling monument, “Trespassers Beware! Fort Conley & Wyandot Women Warriors.” In collaboration with public art initiative Monumenta, “Trespassers” interprets the story of the Wyandot Conley sisters, whose physical and legal battle saved the Wyandot National Burying Ground (Huron Cemetery) from urban development and erasure. The Wyandot Nation is dedicated to preserving Wyandot history and culture, and continuing the Conleys’ legacy of protecting the Wyandot National Burying Ground in Kansas City, Kansas.
Art as Mentorship Rebel Song Academy students performing. Art as Mentorship has been recommended to receive a 2024 ArtsHERE grant. Photo by Scout Tufankjian
Missouri
Number of Grants: 4
Total Dollar Amount: $482,500
Art as Mentorship, Kansas City, MO
The ArtsHERE grant will support the expansion of Art as Mentorship’s programs to serve underserved youth through trauma-informed music education and mentorship. This will include strategic planning, leadership and organizational development, and outreach efforts. Art as Mentorship’s mission is to empower young people to write their own success stories through access to mentorship, real-world skill development, and mental health support.
Creative Reaction Lab, St. Louis, MO
With the ArtsHERE grant, Creative Reaction Lab will scale the reach and impact of its Artwork for Equity program by providing more platforms to amplify marginalized voices and opportunities for community awareness and engagement. Creative Reaction Lab educates and equips Black and Latinx youth to become leaders in designing healthy and equitable communities. Its programs focus on addressing systemic injustices through creative solutions and community engagement.
Kimbilio, St. Louis, MO
The ArtsHERE grant will support strategic planning, board recruitment, and program development to help Kimbilio continue to nurture and sustain its community of writers from the African diaspora. Kimbilio is dedicated to supporting and empowering Black fiction writers through networking, artistic and professional development, resources, and outreach. Its community fosters literary excellence and promotes diverse voices in literature.
Mattie Rhodes Center, Kansas City, MO
Funding from ArtsHERE will support Mattie Rhodes Center’s four annual exhibitions that portray Latino cultural themes with additional programming as well as other activities to stoke stakeholder and cultural engagement. Founded in 1894, Mattie Rhodes Center is a non-traditional arts organization that provides bilingual, culturally-competent programming in the arts and social services. As the only community-based Latino visual arts organization in Kansas City, Mattie Rhodes Center is a critical conduit to communicate Latinos’ rich history and to educate the community about the complexity and uniqueness of Latino populations.
The Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska, hosts an exhibition which is visited by members of their Art Club, a youth program for students ages 8-12. The Union for Contemporary Art has been recommended receive a 2024 ArtsHERE grant. Photography courtesy of The Union for Contemporary Art
Nebraska
Number of Grants: 1
Total Dollar Amount: $65,000
The Union for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE
The Union for Contemporary Art will leverage ArtsHERE funding to provide DEIA training to help staff, teaching artists, and its board better understand the challenges and engage the needs of the community they serve. Located and intentionally founded in Omaha’s Black community, the Union makes the arts accessible by providing free arts education programming for youth, annually producing 1,000 pounds of produce to address food insecurity, and moving the arts into the neighborhood through public art, youth events, and community collaborations that prioritize public engagement.
Oklahoma
Number of Grants: 2
Total Dollar Amount: $195,000
Art Maker, Pawhuska, OK
Art Maker will leverage the ArtsHERE grant for strategic planning, program development, and outreach activities to promote Osage and Indigenous culture through dance, drama, and the fine arts. Located in a small rural town on the Osage Nation reservation, Art Maker helps preserve Osage culture and traditions while offering its students experiences that expand their view of the world and what they can accomplish.
RACE Dance Collective in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, presented “illume” in 2021, an original multi-genre dance experience. RACE Dance Collective has been recommended to receive a 2024 ArtsHERE grant. Photography by Kelly Huynh
RACE Dance Collective, Oklahoma City, OK
RACE Dance Collective will leverage ArtsHERE funding to relocate and expand its RACE the Space adult dance training facility in an under-resourced and racially diverse community with limited access to the arts. The expansion will broaden arts participation by offering dance classes that go beyond traditional Eurocentric genres to include popular styles such as Hip Hop, Heels, and Kpop. RACE Dance is an organization deeply committed to equity, helping promote social awareness and change through dance performance, education, and community engagement.
Texas
Number of Grants: 6
Total Dollar Amount: $639,803
Art Spark Texas, Austin, TX
With ArtsHERE funding, Art Spark Texas will conduct participant-informed research on how to re-engage and better serve young adults with disabilities. Through that project, it will build staff expertise, leverage arts through its programs, and increase accessibility and inclusion for individuals with disabilities. Art Spark Texas challenges perceptions of how people contribute by creating arts-inspired, inclusive communities of artists and individuals with and without disabilities.
Arts Connect Houston, Houston, TX
The ArtsHERE grant will leverage a decade of Arts Connect Houston’s (ACH) data and experience in arts education to develop replicable, community-driven benchmarking tools, focused on providing more students, especially those from underserved communities, with high-quality arts education. ACH unites the Greater Houston community to ensure equitable access to the arts for all students. With 95 arts and culture partners, they provide comprehensive arts education to over 200,000 students annually.
Future Front Texas, Austin, TX
The ArtsHERE grant will help Future Front Texas codify its community curator program, to deepen staff capacity and create a public curriculum from community design within the arts and culture sector. This program provides traditionally overlooked creatives, artists, and cultural workers in Texas with the opportunity to explore equity-driven curatorial structures, program design thinking and community-led creative work. Future Front focuses on supporting women and LGBTQ+ creatives in Texas through programs, workshops, and exhibitions that provide platforms for underrepresented voices in the arts.
RSA of Dance & Performing Arts, Houston, TX
The ArtsHERE grant will expand RSA’s Arts to Infinity program, an initiative for youth from under-resourced communities that combines dance education, performance opportunities, community development, and holistic wellness programming for families. The mission of RSA of Dance & Performing Arts is to provide quality arts education, mentorship, and experiences to underserved youth, ages 3 and older. The organization focuses on community development and youth engagement, promoting the arts as a means of personal and social growth.
Teatro Dallas, Dallas, TX
The Welman Project hosts a beginners sewing class where attendees make aprons. The Welman Project has been recommended to receive a 2024 ArtsHERE grant. Photo courtesy of The Welman Project
The ArtsHERE grant will support strategic planning, board development, innovative marketing strategies, and stakeholder engagement to better reach the shifting demographics and Spanish-speaking communities of North Texas. For over three decades, the organization has addressed systemic barriers within the arts, particularly those affecting low-income, bilingual families and underrepresented artists. Through high-quality theatrical programming, Teatro Dallas employs the power of theater to empower the Latinx community, celebrate diverse traditions, and strengthen the community.
The Welman Project, Fort Worth, TX
The ArtsHERE grant will support strategic planning and cultural competency training to help The Welman Project open its tool library and makerspace as part of the future Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing, which was formerly used as a KKK auditorium, in a majority Hispanic community. The Welman Project connects teachers and schools with surplus materials from businesses, promoting creative reuse and sustainability in education. It aims to enrich arts learning experiences while reducing waste and fostering environmental stewardship.
About the ArtsHERE Pilot Program
In addition to grant awards, ArtsHERE grant recipients will participate in quarterly peer learning workshops, monthly cohort sessions, and one-on-one meetings with technical assistance coaches and field experts. These meetings are designed for knowledge-sharing, learning, and capacity-building, to help reinforce the initiative’s opportunities for cross-sector engagement.
As a pilot program, ArtsHERE will be documented and evaluated by the NEA to better understand the project activities supported by this program and how grantees approached the work. These insights may inform the future of ArtsHERE and similar funding programs in the future.
More than 4,000 organizations applied for ArtsHERE funding in late 2023 and early 2024. Applications were reviewed by multiple review panels based on published review criteria, including the applicant’s organizational capacity and their capacity-building project, alignment with ArtsHERE’s commitment to equity, and engagement with historically underserved communities. The selected organizations will receive funding to support their projects, which will take place between October 2024 through June 2026.
ArtsHERE is also supported by The Wallace Foundation through matching funds to the Regional Arts Organizations in support of this program.
Read more about all the grant recipients and their projects on the NEA website.