The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation’s (NACF) **LIFT – Early Career Support for Native Artists** program supports emerging Native artists through one-year awards to develop and realize new projects. These awards are a crucial investment in cultivating fresh voices and envisioning the future of our respective Native practices.

Now in its fourth iteration, LIFT builds upon extensive research and strategic planning to expand opportunities for early-career Native artists. The program encourages artists to uplift communities, advance positive social change, point courageously toward environmental sustainability, and foster communal meaning-making. Through their projects, LIFT artists address critical issues around cultural sovereignty, environmental and social justice, healing and well-being, and systemic change.

  
The award period will run from **August 1, 2025, to July 31, 2026**.

LIFT provides a comprehensive suite of services, including **$15,000 awards**, artist professional development, mentorship, project evaluation, documentation, and communications/marketing support

2025 LIFT – Early Career Support for Native Artists Program

The Foundation offers grants to non-profit arts organisations actively engaged in the cultural sector, supporting artistic projects.

  
The Foundation supports diverse forms of cultural expression, encompassing both traditional and contemporary mediums, such as:

  
* Artisan crafts
* Exhibitions
* Long-term and cross-cultural research projects with public outcomes
* Major festivals and biennials
* Music
* New public commissions
* Performing arts
* Prizes and awards

Grants ranging from £5,000 to £150,000 are awarded twice a year.

Arts and Culture Grant

The Community Artist Grant will creatively activate Downtown Marshalltown, using the **Marshalltown Arts and Culture Master Plan** as a guide. The grantee will be a community artist and/or social practice artist who will create a project to “build bridges” between communities, ideas, and neighborhoods within the city.

  
Each year, the Arts + Culture Alliance decides which theme to activate through this grant program. The decision is based on community and stakeholder input. Build Bridges was one of the five themes identified by the Arts and Culture Master Plan.

When examining this specific theme, the Alliance identifies and interprets this as:

* Authentically connecting different communities within Marshalltown
* Building infrastructure for greater access to neighborhoods and their assets
* Bridging the past to the present and into the future
* Restoring trust between individuals, communities, and organizations within Marshalltown
* Generating a bridge toward economic sustainability
* Connecting people to causes they care about

  
**Eligible Funding Period** | May 26, 2025 – December 1, 2025

* The Eligible Funding Period officially begins upon the artist’s completion of the grant contract
* All expenses must be incurred within the Eligible Funding Period
* The project, artwork or program must be completed by December 1, 2025

  

The Community Artist Grant

Applications are now open for the second edition of the First Book Grant (2025), which aims to encourage new waves of individuals to engage in literary writing projects that are open to multiple forms and genres, and to support them in producing and publishing their first books, in a learning journey that combines editing, publishing, and meeting the public, making the process of completing the first book a rich and enriching experience of dialogue and creative confrontation, which can lead to a more mature production than the experiences of publishing the first literary book often appear.

  
**The grant is implemented in three phases:**

  
* **First**: The stage of submitting applications and evaluating literary manuscripts by an independent arbitration/reading committee, and selecting a short list that includes, at most, 10 literary projects that the committee recommends working on for publication.

  
* **Second**: The stage of developing the manuscripts included in the shortlist and preparing them for publication, by providing supervision and literary editing, where necessary.

  
* **Third**: The publishing stage, launching books, and meeting the public.

The scholarship offers two forms of support:

  
**Financial: It is worth $2,000 and is paid to the writer in two equal installments:**

  
* First: After signing an agreement between the writer and the institution regarding the publishing process, which includes the process of developing the manuscript and preparing it for publication.

  
* Second: After the book is published by a publishing house that the Foundation agrees with, and at least one book launch party is organized.

**Administrative / Organizational: It includes providing a set of technical and technological services, including:**

* Providing editing and literary supervision services, through a relationship with an experienced writer/editor, where necessary, and based on the recommendation of the judging/reading committee.

  
* Providing proofreading services for manuscripts prepared for publication.

  
* Organizing a book launch event at the Qattan Cultural Center in Ramallah, and/or in Gaza, where possible.

  
* Assist the writer in organizing a reading tour, in cooperation with relevant institutions, especially universities and schools.

  
* Providing professional and legal support to writers, to help them develop a better understanding of their rights and responsibilities, for example, by organising specialised workshops in areas related to the world of publishing and translation.

First Book Grant

**The Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants (AWAW EAG) provides grants of up to $20,000 to environmental art projects led by women-identifying artists in the United States and U.S. Territories.**

The AWAW EAG supports environmental art projects that inspire thought, action, and ethical engagement. Projects should not only point at problems, but aim to engage an environmental issue at some scale. Proposals should illustrate thorough consideration of a project’s ecological and social ethics. Projects that explore interdependence, relationships, and systems through Indigenous and ancestral practices are encouraged to apply.

For the 2025 cycle, the program will distribute over $520,000 in funding. This more than doubles the yearly funding since AWAW EAG’s inaugural year, offering more artists the opportunity to have their projects funded.

Environmental Art Grants

This program provides one-time grants of up to $3,000 to professional dancers in need, who have a dire financial emergency due to the loss or lack of recent/current live performance work, because of circumstances outside of their control. “Dire financial emergencies“ include the lack or imminent endangerment of essentials such as rental housing, medicine/healthcare, utilities, transportation and food. This grant program aims to provide dancers with greater stability to move forward by covering up to three months of essential expenses, recognizing the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dance sector. You must present an urgent and critical need for emergency support in your application.

Rauschenberg Dancer Emergency Grants Cycle 18

As part of the **regional ICC development project in Indianocean** , financed by the **French Development Agency** (AFD), **the IOC** is launching the second cycle of awarding the "Tafà" scholarship in order to contribute to the professionalization of the sector in the countries of the region.

  
The "Tafà" scholarship aims to:

1. **Professionalize cultural actors** in the ICC value chain: creation, production, distribution and dissemination in order to strengthen ICCs at the national and regional level.
2. **Develop the academic offering** by strengthening the teaching staff of the countries and promoting regional training.

  
Priority will be given to training that has an impact on equality by promoting the full participation and inclusion of women.

**Eligible support**

  
* Travel expenses
* Registration fees
* Tuition
* Living expenses
* Visa fees
* Family help

Tafà, Scholarship - Cycle II

Cortona On The Move and the BarTur Photo Award are proud to announce their partnership to present the Cortona On The Move | BarTur Grant. Supported by the Visual Storytellers Fund, this initiative aims to support photographers worldwide by providing grants and resources to create compelling documentary photo essays. The Grant focuses on projects that illuminate urgent social, environmental, economic, and cultural issues of our time.

  
Photographers are invited to submit proposals for in-progress documentary projects that align with the fund's central themes. The grand prize winner and the two emerging photographer winners will be announced at Cortona On The Move Festival in July 2025\. The winners will have nine months to complete their project, with the final work submitted by 15th March 2026\. The completed work will be exhibited at the 2026 edition of Cortona On The Move, along with the two winning works by emerging photographers, offering a global stage to amplify their story. The Grant will cover the travel and accommodation for the winners to attend the opening ceremony of Cortona On The Move 2026.

  
Submissions are assessed on intellectual and substantive merits, as well as:

  
* Creativity and Originality: The uniqueness of the approach and a compelling narrative.
* Relevance: Alignment with the competition's thematic areas (urgent social, environmental, economic, or cultural issues).
* Technical and Aesthetic Excellence: The quality of the imagery and storytelling.
* Potential Impact: The project's capacity to engage audiences and inspire meaningful dialogue.
* Feasibility: The clarity of the budget, timeline, and methodologies proposed.

* Two $5,000 Prizes: Awarded to two emerging photographers under 30.

  
* $30,000 Grand Prize: Awarded to one professional photographer.
* Main winners will have their work exhibited at Cortona On The Move in July 2026.
* Travel and accommodation for the main winners to attend the festival will be covered.

Cortona On The Move / BarTur Grant 2025

**The Center for Photographic Art is thrilled to announce the CPA Artist Grants for 2025!**

  
Four separate grants of $5,000 each will be awarded to deserving photographers: one emerging photographer (students are encouraged to apply), one more established photographer, one landscape photographer, and one LGBTQ+ photographer. We’ve invited Nancy Kathryn Burns, WM Hunt, and Frank Yamrus to be on our selection committee this year.

  

Artist Grants 2025

Find funding opportunities to realize your latest project, as well as research grants, travel stipends, and financial support for artists located all over the world.

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