Assistance program
ECA – American Spaces
$44.7 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- State, Department of, State, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 19.441
- What it does
- As authorized by the Fulbright-Hays Act, American Spaces are cultural and information centers around the world that provide free and open access for members of local communities to learn more about the United States, develop skills, and access a wide range of resources. Funded by the U.S. Department of State and hosted at U.S. embassies, consulates, and various local partner institutions, approximately 600 American Spaces in 140 countries host programs and events that foster learning, discussion, and civic engagement around democratic principles. Most American Spaces are based on partnerships with local organizations (libraries, universities, binational centers, NGOs) that provide facilities and staff, but some are located in U.S. government-owned facilities, to include embassies or consulates. The Office of American Spaces in Washington, D.C., and its training unit in Vienna, Austria, provide centralized oversight, strategic direction, funding, training and programming resources to all American Spaces, while U.S. embassies and consulates implement the programming to engage foreign audiences in support of U.S. national interests. The six core programming areas that take place in American Spaces draw on the breadth of what the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs offers: Promotion of U.S. higher education, including EducationUSA advising; English language learning and teaching; Exchange Alumni engagement; strategic cultural programs that utilize ECA’s and other envoys (arts, music, sports, science, and more); professional skills building; and accurate information about the United States, such as through connecting audiences with expert American speakers. The Director of ECA/A/M leads the American Spaces strategy, under the direction of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for ECA Academic programs. ECA coordinates with other Department bureaus (R/PPR, regional PD offices, GPA, OBO, DS, and DT, among others) as appropriate to ensure that all interests are met.
- Who benefits
- Foreign audiences. See www.grants.gov for individual award announcements.
- Who applies
- Not Applicable
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments