Assistance program
Promotion of the Arts Grants to Organizations and Individuals
$780.3 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 45.024
- What it does
- To support opportunities for all people to participate in the arts and arts education, integrate the arts with strategies that promote the well-being and resilience of people and communities, and build capacity and infrastructure within the arts sector through knowledge-sharing, tools, resources, and evidence-based practices.
- Who benefits
- Through activities and services supported, beneficiaries include the general public and artists as well as nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, local arts agencies, local education agencies (school districts), federally recognized tribal communities and Indian tribes, literary artists, and master artists.
- Who applies
- Tax-exempt organizations meeting the following conditions may apply: (1) No part of any earnings may benefit a private stockholder or individual, and (2) donations to the organization are allowable as charitable deductions under Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code. Examples of eligible organizations are arts institutions, arts service organizations, local arts agencies, official units of state and local governments, federally recognized tribal communities, and Indian tribes. Generally, an organization may submit only one application for a single project under one of the category deadlines; must have a three-year history of arts programming prior to the application deadline; and must have submitted acceptable final reports by the due date for all National Endowment for the Arts grants previously received. Individuals must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and, according to 20 U.S.C. 954 (c), must demonstrate exceptional talent. Currently, the only individuals eligible to apply directly are published creative writers and translators. Certain master artists who have made extraordinary contributions to the arts in the United States are eligible for honorary fellowships awarded on the basis of nominations. See respective funding opportunities, guidelines, or program announcements for further information.
- Authorized by
- National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, as amended
- Public Law 116-136
- Program site
- http://www.arts.gov ↗
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