The submission cycle for the Arts & Culture Community Grant is now closed.
The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) is excited to announce a new special funding opportunity. The CRE2 Arts & Culture Community Grants will support individuals and organizations in the St. Louis metro area engaged in creative practice that forefronts race and/or ethnicity. Our goal is to provide direct support for proposals in the humanities, arts, and design that engage the lived realities of the St. Louis Metro region.
St. Louis is associated with racial tension and inequity. In the minds of outsiders and St. Louisans alike, the city is defined by “The Divide”—disparities, deficits, and discrimination. These divides and disparities are deep and long-standing, and CRE2 shares an ambition with the region’s stakeholders and Washington University to disrupt and ameliorate them.
However, we often miss the ways that race and ethnicity are assets for St. Louis, seen perhaps most clearly and richly in the arts and St. Louis’s cultural institutions. This is true equally of the creatives that have made a home in St. Louis as visual artists, writers, musicians, designers, and dancers; and “micro” institutions that serve many cultures and ethnicities; and the region’s legacy cultural institutions.
Of course, these contrasting stories – of racial conflict and cultural vibrancy – also collide in St. Louis and our region and are reflected in enduring challenges like perpetual neglect of minority-serving arts and culture institutions, selective cultural heritage preservation, and representations of race and ethnicity – including erasure – on the memorial landscape.
The CRE2 Arts & Culture Community Grants hope to help address these and other issues by serving as a collaborative space for race and/or ethnicity and the arts and culture in St. Louis.
The goals of the CRE2 Arts & Culture Community Grants are to:
- Incubate new creative work, community initiatives and, where relevant, related research at the intersection of race and/or ethnicity and arts and culture.
- Galvanize and amplify efforts to use arts and culture initiatives as a driver for interracial and interethnic community and racial and/or ethnic equity, including heritage preservation and reparative commemorative projects.
CRE2 will award Arts & Culture Community Grants of up to $10,000 per grant project. Funds must be used by June 15, 2024.
We welcome proposals from community-focused organizations (no Washington University affiliation required) and individuals that explore the cultural, political, social and/or economic landscape of the St. Louis Metro region, but strongly encourage work in the following areas:
CREATIVE PRACTICE
- Support for organizations and individuals engaged in different modes of creative practice centered on issues of race, public space, inequality, the celebration of diversity, etc. Projects in this category may include, but are not limited to, oral history, public history, documentaries, podcasts, exhibitions, the visual arts, performing arts, and creative writing.
DESIGN AND THE CITY
- Support for organizations or individuals engaged in projects related to the (re)design of the city, public space and race and ethnicity (including issues around immigration), public memorials, equity and mobility, climate change, and spatial injustice.
The CRE2 Arts & Culture Community Grant aims to continue and build on the work foregrounded by the Divided City Initiative with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation. This special opportunity is presented in partnership with The Center for the Humanities & The Office for Socially Engaged Practice.
Washington University in St. Louis affiliation is not required.
Proposals should be submitted here.
Proposals must include the following sections: Project proposal (200 words); Detailed description of your project (500 words); Outcomes for the project (300 words); Description of how you will evaluate the impact of your project (300 words); A detailed timeline of the project; A brief statement that explains the project’s relevance to the study of race and/or ethnicity (150 words); List of any and all collaborators and their titles/affiliations; Outline of expenses you expect to incur in conjunction with your proposed project; Budget description (500 words).
If applying as an individual:
- A description elaborating on your practice (200 words).
If applying as an organization:
- Description of individual (title/role) applying on behalf of the organization.
- Description of the organization.
The submission cycle for the Arts & Culture Community Grant is now closed.
Project funds must be used by June 15, 2024.
CRE2 will award Arts & Culture Community Grants of up to $10,000 per grant project.
Funds are for project-focused grants and cannot go toward direct-service or general operating expenses of an organization.
A review committee will screen all submitted proposals to determine whether they align with the program’s goals and will review qualifying proposals. Proposals will be evaluated on their regional impact, feasibility and connection to the work of CRE2.
Award Notifications will be announced December 2023.
The Center will monitor progress on Arts & Culture Community Grants. Grantees will provide an expense report upon request. Grantees will submit a final progress report and any products of the grant within one (1) month after the end date of their grant period and will notify CRE2 of any proposals and scholarly works subsequently submitted or awarded/accepted. Potential grant products and scholarly works include publications; grant proposals; recordings; installations or exhibits; documentation of conferences, symposia, or residencies; and scholarly awards or honors. All products generated with the support of a CRE2 Arts & Culture Community Grants will acknowledge the program using the statement, “This work has been funded by the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity at Washington University in St. Louis. This special opportunity is presented in partnership with The Center for the Humanities & The Office for Socially Engaged Practice with generous support of the Mellon Foundation.”