The National Endowment for the Arts is offering the Access to Artistic Excellence Grant to foster creativity and broaden arts participation.

To be eligible, the applicant organization must:

Meet the Arts Endowment’s "Legal Requirements" including nonprofit, tax-exempt status at the time of application. (All organizations must apply directly on their own behalf. Applications through a fiscal agent are not allowed.)

Have a three-year history of programming prior to the application deadline.

Have submitted acceptable Final Report packages by the due date(s) for all Arts Endowment grant(s) previously received.

See "How to Prepare and Submit an Application" for the documentation that is required to demonstrate eligibility.

The designated fifty state and six jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) and their regional arts organizations (RAOs) may serve as consortium members and participants including consortium lead applicants. However, all grant funds must be passed on to the other consortium members. Each SAA or RAO may serve as the lead applicant for only one consortium project. SAAs and RAOs are eligible to apply on their own behalf through the Partnership Agreements guidelines.

Ineligible applications will be returned.

Application Limits
An organization may submit only one application under these FY 2011 Grants for Arts Projects guidelines, with few exceptions as listed below.

Access to Artistic Excellence encourages and supports artistic creativity, preserves our diverse cultural heritage, and makes the arts more widely available in communities throughout the country. While projects in this category may focus on just one of these areas, the Arts Endowment recognizes that many of the most effective projects encompass both artistic excellence and enhanced access.

Particularly relevant at this time are projects that demonstrate innovation by generating new forms of art making, new directions in the field, and/or innovative uses of creative resources.

Support is available to organizations for projects that do one or more of the following:

Provide opportunities for artists to create, refine, perform, and exhibit their work.
Present artistic works of all cultures and periods.
Preserve significant works of art and cultural traditions.
Enable arts organizations and artists to expand and diversify their audiences.
Provide opportunities for individuals to experience and participate in a wide range of art forms and activities.
Enhance the effectiveness of arts organizations and artists.
Employ the arts in strengthening communities.
The Arts Endowment is particularly interested in projects that extend the arts to underserved populations — those whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics, or disability. This is achieved in part through the use of Challenge America funds.

Please note: Congress has prohibited the Arts Endowment from making direct grants to individuals except for Literature Fellowships, NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships, NEA National Heritage Fellowships in the Folk & Traditional Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors.

To be eligible, the applicant organization must:

Meet the Arts Endowment’s "Legal Requirements" including nonprofit, tax-exempt status at the time of application. (All organizations must apply directly on their own behalf. Applications through a fiscal agent are not allowed.)

Have a three-year history of programming prior to the application deadline.

Have submitted acceptable Final Report packages by the due date(s) for all Arts Endowment grant(s) previously received.

See "How to Prepare and Submit an Application" for the documentation that is required to demonstrate eligibility.

The designated fifty state and six jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) and their regional arts organizations (RAOs) may serve as consortium members and participants including consortium lead applicants. However, all grant funds must be passed on to the other consortium members. Each SAA or RAO may serve as the lead applicant for only one consortium project. SAAs and RAOs are eligible to apply on their own behalf through the Partnership Agreements guidelines.

Ineligible applications will be returned.

Application Limits
An organization may submit only one application under these FY 2011 Grants for Arts Projects guidelines, with few exceptions as listed below.

GRANT PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
We Fund
Under these guidelines, funding is available for projects only.

A project may consist of one or more specific events or activities; it may be a part of an applicant’s regular season or activities. Organizations that undertake a single short-term project in a year — a ten-day jazz festival, for example — could apply for that event, or they could identify certain components (such as the presentation of a key artist and the associated activities) as their project. Describe the activities for which Arts Endowment support is requested, and provide specific information on the artists, productions, venues, distribution plans, etc., that will be involved.

Organizations may apply for any or all phases of a project, from its planning through its implementation.

A project does not have to be new. Excellent existing projects can be just as competitive as new activities.

Projects do not need to be large. The Arts Endowment welcomes small projects that can make a difference in a community or field.

For Challenge America Fast-Track, projects are limited to the examples that are provided under the expanded category description.

We Do Not Fund
Under these guidelines, funding is not available for:

General operating support.
Seasonal support.
Costs for the creation of new organizations.
Direct grants to individuals. (The Arts Endowment encourages applicant organizations to involve individual artists in all possible ways.)
Individual elementary or secondary schools — charter, private, or public — directly. Schools may participate as partners in projects for which another eligible organization applies. Local education agencies (school districts) and state and regional education agencies are eligible. If a single school also is the local education agency, as is the case with some charter schools, the school may apply with documentation that supports its status as the local education agency.
Construction, purchase, or renovation of facilities. (Predevelopment, design fees, and community planning are eligible. However, no Arts Endowment or matching funds may be directed to the costs of physical construction or renovation or toward the purchase costs of facilities or land.)
Commercial (for-profit) enterprises or activities.
Cash reserves and endowments.
Subgranting or regranting, except for state arts agencies, regional arts organizations, or local arts agencies that are designated to operate on behalf of their local governments or are operating units of city or county government. (See more information on subgranting.)
Awards to individuals or organizations to honor or recognize achievement.
Generally, professional training in degree-granting institutions.
Work toward academic degrees and the pursuit of academic careers.
Activities that are designed to supplant existing in-school arts instruction.
Literary publishing that does not focus on contemporary literature and/or writers.
Generally, publication of books or exhibition of works by the applicant organization’s staff, board members, faculty, or trustees.
Exhibitions of, and other projects that primarily involve, single, individually-owned, private collections.
Projects for which the selection of artists or artworks is based upon criteria other than artistic excellence and merit. Examples include festivals, exhibits, or publications for which no jury/editorial judgment has been applied.
Expenditures that are related to compensation to foreign nationals and artists traveling to or from foreign countries when those expenditures are not in compliance with regulations issued by the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control. For further information, see http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ or contact the Arts Endowment’s Grants & Contracts Office at grants@arts.gov.
Project costs that are supported by any other federal funds or their match.
Additional information on unallowable costs is included in the instructions for the Project Budget form.