NPN Southern Artists for Social Change Program 2024 ($25,000 grant): Applications are open for the National Performance Network’s Southern Artists for Social Change Program 2024.
The National Performance Network’s Southern Artists for Social Change program provides $25,000 project grants to artists and culture bearers of color living, working, and engaging in social change in urban, rural, and tribal communities of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
NPN’s Southern Artists for Social Change envisions a world in which people of color living, working, and organizing for community change in the South have the power, resources, and opportunities to thrive. NPN’s mission is to contribute to a more just and equitable world by building artists’ power; advancing racial and cultural justice in the arts; fostering relationships between individuals, institutions, and communities; and working toward systems change in arts and philanthropy.
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NPN Southern Artists for Social Change Program 2024 ($25,000 grant).
Grant
- $25,000 grants per project for one year;
- Grantees must be available for an orientation session and participate throughout the 2024–2024 grant period in cohort meetings and other gatherings;
- A select set of grantees may have the opportunity for a Participatory Action Research (PAR) component that focuses on a grantee project, in collaboration with the Highlander Research and Education Center.
Eligibility Criteria – National Performance Network’s Southern Artists for Social Change Program 2024
- Artists and culture bearers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) living, working, and engaging in social change in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
- Artists and culture bearers with demonstrated practice in any discipline.
- Individual artists as well as artist collectives may apply. Artist collectives must have a demonstrated history of creating new work collectively for at least two years.
- Applicants must be 18 years of age or older by application deadline.
- Applicants must be AL, LA, or MS residents for at least five consecutive years at the time of both application and payment and must provide a valid state ID.
- Projects should demonstrate a civic practice process to (1) identify specific community challenges or needs, (2) imagine a different future for the community, and (3) practice, test, or design approaches toward that future that center racial justice.
- While projects may be artist-driven, projects should include at least two community members (individuals, agencies, organizations) as collaborators who share in decision-making, shaping the project and project outcomes.
- Grants may support any phase of a project (research, development, production, etc.), including new initiatives or ongoing work, and a portion of funding should directly support the artist(s).
Not eligible at this time:
- Nonprofit organizations
- 2024, 2024, or 2024 NPN Creation Fund Recipients
- Artists who are high school students, or who are college or graduate students enrolled in a degree-granting program, at the time of application or during the period of the grant
- Current NPN staff, board of directors, or panelists
- Curators and researchers
How to Apply for National Performance Network’s Southern Artists for Social Change Program 2024
We have recently updated our grants management system and are using the SmartSimple platform to accept Southern Artists for Social Change applications. When using the platform, please let us know if you encounter any glitches or if something does not work the way it should. We are still learning the system, too, and will be happy to help troubleshoot and figure out any problems you might have.
If you already have an account in our system, log in here.
If you do not already have an account in our system, go to this link in your web browser and click on the “Register” button to set up an account.
LETTER OF INTENT QUESTIONS
Please note that decisions will not be based on language, grammar, or writing. There are two options for responding to the project narrative. (1) You may respond by filling out the application fields. (2) You can respond by pasting a link with your audio and/or video responses via YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, etc.
Provide responses that answer the following:
- What specific community challenge does your project address? Tell us about the specific challenge your project aims to spotlight and change, its relation to the community affected, and the importance of disrupting this challenge.
- Imagine your community has overcome this challenge. What would the community look or feel like? What elements would you put in place to make your community a more racially just place in the future?
- How does your project work toward this new future? Feel free to describe strategies, models, and tools that you will use to build this future.
- Is the project new or ongoing? If ongoing, when did the project start and where are you in the process now?
- Does the project focus on a process, creating a product or outcome, or both?
- What community partners are involved with this project and what are their roles? Are these partners part of the ongoing network of support already in place? (Community partners can be individuals, organizations, agencies, etc.)
- How do these community partnerships advance racial justice?
- What is your relationship with these community partners? Is there a history of collaboration between you and them?
- How are the vision and decision-making of the project shared among the partners?
EXAMPLES
Below are examples of projects that (1) identify community challenges or needs, (2) imagine a different future, and (3) practice, test, and/or design strategies toward the imagined future that center racial justice.
La Imaginistas (Brownsville, TX): Hacemos La Ciudad (We Make the City)
Hacemos La Ciudad (We Make the City) is a comprehensive civic reimagining initiative that examines and questions how colonial ideology informs contemporary life by warping traditional planning processes and infusing the everyday with the magical.
- Community challenge: Contemporary civic life, architecture, and the infrastructure of our cities is informed by colonial ideology.
- Imagined future: A decolonized civic landscape, where community members develop their own more equitable version of the city.
- Strategies: Develop an artistic representation reflecting the dreams and ambitions of Brownsville community members, and a comprehensive call to action with suggestions for how to work collectively to materialize those dreams.
Design Studio for Social Innovation (Boston, MA): Public Kitchen
As public infrastructures—hospitals, water, schools, transportation, etc.—are privatized, the Public Kitchen takes a stab at going in the reverse direction.
- Community challenge: Privatization of public infrastructure does not serve the public good.
- Imagined future: More vibrant public infrastructures that can improve the quality of our lives through social and food justice.
- Strategies: Challenge the public’s own feelings that “public” means poor, broken down, poorly run, and “less than” private; engage communities in claiming public space, the social, and food justice; and make a new case for public infrastructures through creating ones that don’t exist.
GRANT TERMS:
- $25,000 grants per project for one year
- Grantees must be available for an orientation session and participate throughout the 2024–2024 grant period in cohort meetings and other gatherings.
- A select set of grantees may have the opportunity for a Participatory Action Research (PAR) component that focuses on a grantee project, in collaboration with the Highlander Research and Education Center.
TIMELINE:
- April 4–July 29, 2024
Open Call for Letter of Intent (LOI)
- July 29, 2024 5:00 pm CST
Deadline for LOI
- September 1, 2024 5:00 pm CST
Deadline for full proposal
- October 21, 2024
Award notification
Deadline: July 29, 2024