The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has released their grant guidelines http://www.nea.gov/recovery/nea-recovery-programs.html for applying for economic stimulus and job recovery arts funds. The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act provides $50 million to support jobs in the arts through NEA grants.

On the NEA Recovery webpage, http://www.nea.gov/recovery/nea-recovery-programs.html, the new guidelines provide application dates, eligibility criteria and potential project outlines. In order to get money out to the arts field as quickly as possible, the NEA is fast-tracking the process. The deadline for applying for the direct grants is April 2, 2009, with grants being awarded as early as July 1, 2009. These direct grants will be available to arts organizations as non-matching one-time grants of $25,000 or $50,000. Local arts agencies are provided $100,000 or $250,000 for re-granting activities.

One immediate issue of concern is that the NEA is requiring that any applicant for the direct grants must have received an NEA grant within the last four years. The agency has set this requirement as a result of direction from the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB). OMB has recommended obligating funds to existing award recipients as a method of ensuring that the applicant pool can be considered quickly and to ensure quality. Complete details on applicant eligibility and the rest of the recovery grant program are available on the NEA's Recovery website http://www.nea.gov/recovery/nea-recovery-programs.html.

If you have any questions, please contact Tom McClimon on the Conference staff at: mcclimon@usmayors.org or 202-861-6729.



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