Our Town is the National Endowment for the Arts’ creative placemaking grants program. These grants support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities by advancing local economic, physical, and/or social outcomes. Successful Our Town projects ultimately lay the groundwork for systemic changes that sustain the integration of arts, culture, and design into strategies for strengthening communities.
To apply, choose a program area:
Place-Based Projects. Through arts engagement, cultural planning, design, and/or artist/creative industry support, these projects contribute to improved quality of life in local communities. These projects require a partnership between a nonprofit organization and a local government entity, with one of the partners being a cultural organization. Matching grants range from $25,000 to $200,000, with a minimum cost share/match equal to the grant amount.
Knowledge Building Projects. These projects build and disseminate knowledge about how to leverage arts, culture, and design as mechanisms for strengthening communities. These grants are available to arts service or design service organizations, and/or other national or regional membership, policy, or university-based organizations. These projects require a partnership that will facilitate the knowledge sharing and/or exchange. Matching grants range from $25,000 to $100,000, with a minimum cost share/match equal to the grant amount.
Through Our Town projects, the National Endowment for the Arts intends to achieve the following objective: Strengthening Communities: Provide opportunities for the arts to be integrated into the fabric of community life.
It must also receive an endorsement from the Mayor’s Office via a letter from the Mayor. If your organization or entity is interested in applying you must submit a one-page narrative of the Our Town grant project to Arts & Venues for review. The narrative should include amount requested, budget, and expectations for city support – cash, in-kind, or general support. The narrative must be submitted to Ginger.White@denvergov.org by Monday, June 4.
https://www.arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/introduction
[Thank you to Alex Teitz, http://www.femmusic.com, for contributing this article.]