Resources
As BMHC works with many musicians, dancers, artists, and small non-profits whose livelihood will be adversely affected by schedule changes due to coronavirus (COVID 19), here are some links and contacts to resources that may provide tips and suggestions to help get through this time:
Emergency Funds for Musicians and Artists
Deadline: rolling basis
NYFA and the Rauschenberg Foundation have teamed up to offer visual and media artists and choreographers in the US grants of up to $5,000 for medical related emergencies.
Format has put together a $25,000 relief fund designed to help photographers facing financial difficulties during the outbreak. The fund offers $500 per person
Artists who have suffered from a recent, career threatening emergency, such as an illness, accident, fire or natural disaster, can apply for funding. CERF+ also has a list of resources centered around the pandemic.
Max’s Kansas City Emergency Grants
The Max’s Kansas City project provides emergency funding and resources to professionals in the creative arts. Awards are up to $1,000 per artist.
Twenty Summers Emergency Arts Fund
Twenty Summer has launched an emergency fund for artists and arts organizations suffering from unexpected and unmanageable financial loss as a result of the COVID-19. Artists can receive up to $500, while arts organizations can receive up to $1,000.
Grants to needy NYC individuals who are distressed or suffering as a result of poverty, low income or lack of financial resources, including as a result of natural or civil disasters, or from temporary impoverishment, loss of employment, death or incapacity of a family wage earner or damage to home and property; to provide health care to those who cannot afford health care or whose health insurance or financial resources are insufficient to cover medical needs;
Grants for qualified freelance professional artists experiencing a specific career-threatening emergency.
This fund, created by The Soze Foundation, TaskForce and Invisible Hand, will support artists and activists whose work has been impacted by COVID-19. Funding $250 grants to selected applicants on an on-going basis.
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants
Created in 1993 to further FCA's mission to encourage, sponsor, and promote work of a contemporary, experimental nature, Emergency Grants provide urgent funding for visual and performing artists. Each month FCA receives an average of 95 Emergency Grant applications and makes approximately 12-15 grants. Grants range in amount from $500 to $2,500, and the average grant is now $1,600.
Any artist in any discipline whose income has been impacted by COVID19-related cancellations and closures may apply for emergency relief and support. Stipends and support will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis, with the only limitation being how much money they are able to raise.
The Blues Foundation established the HART Fund (Handy Artists Relief Trust) for Blues musicians and their families in financial need due to a broad range of health concerns. The Fund provides for acute, chronic and preventive medical and dental care as well as funeral and burial expenses.
Freelancers Relief Fund will offer financial assistance of up to $1,000 per freelance household to cover lost income and essential expenses not covered by government relief programs
Arts Administrators of Color Network
Arts Administrators of Color Network has set up the Arts Leaders of Color Emergency Fund which folks can donate directly to in support of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists AND administrators (consultants, facilitators, box office staff, seasonal/temporary employees, etc.) who have been financially impacted due to COVID-19.
MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund
Music industry professionals may apply for basic living assistance (rent or mortgage). Initial grant requests can be made up to $1000 to compensate for cancelled work that was scheduled and lost.
They have established a COVID-19 Musicians’ Emergency Fund to help musicians and their families with basic living expenses.
An online music festival and fundraiser where all proceeds will provide performance grants to New York City musicians whose freelance careers have been impacted by COVID-19.
Afro-Latin Jazz Alliance Emergency Artist Fund
The Afro Latin Jazz Alliance has established the ALJA Emergency Artist Fund to provide assistance to independent artists in the NY/NJ area – in particular, our Afro Latin community – affected by the current situation.
National Association for Latino Arts and Cultures
Latinx artists in the U.S. and Puerto Rico can apply for $500 micro-grants as short-term emergency financial assistance to compensate for loss of income due to the cancellation of an event, engagement, project or employment. Application in English and Spanish.
Artist Relief launched with a generous $5 million seed gift from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in collaboration with several foundations will offer $5,000 grants to artists facing dire financial emergencies due to COVID-19.
Resources for Artists
The ARTery: Grants And Resources For Artists And Nonprofits
Archive: Financial Relief List (for Artists)
Americans for the Arts: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource and Response Center
Community Resources for Freelance Artists during COVID-19
Dramatists Guild: List of Emergency Grants
Kickstarters: Resources for Artists in the COVID-19 Crisis
Mark Morris Dance Group: Artist Resources
Mid-Atlantic Foundation Covid-19 Resources
New York Foundation for the Arts Emergency Resources
Dancers
Selected individual freelance dance workers will receive grant awards of $500 per month with a maximum of $1,500 across the grant period, from March 2020 to May 2020.
Theatre
An artistshelping artists network. With 10,000 subscribers at $10 a month, they can give $10,000 to 10 different artists affected by the Covid-19 cancelations. And every month 10 new artists in need will get $10,000. If the goal is surpassed, more people will get help.
Visual Artist
The fund is a small nonprofit with a narrow focus of assisting painters and sculptors by paying a potion of emergency medical bills directly to the medical providers. The fund is legally not able to pay artists directly.
The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Emergency Grant
The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Emergency Grant program is intended to provide interim financial assistance to qualified painters, printmakers, and sculptorswhose needs are the result of an unforeseen, catastrophic incident, and who lack the resources to meet that situation. Each grant is given as one-time assistance for a specific emergency, examples of which are fire, flood, or emergency medical need.
The award provides direct support to under-recognized artists 21 years or older.In response to the Covid-19 crisis, the deadline to submit an application for the 2020 grant cycle has been extended by two weeks. Thenew deadline to submit an application for the 2020 grant cycle is May 1, 2020 11:59PM Pacific.
Disasters are unpredictable, and the impact on an artist’s life and work can be devastating. To help artists get back to work, the Joan Mitchell Foundation provides grants of up to $6,000 to US-based visual artists who have suffered significant physical losses after natural or man-made disasters.Applications are accepted throughout the year, and reviewed monthly based on volume. We are currently accepting applications from artists affected by:Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, Michael, Florence, and Dorian, California wildfires, Puerto Rico earthquakesand other natural or man-made disasters affecting a region on a broad scale within the last three years.
The complete list of emergency funds/grant for visual artists.
Writers
Recipients of Authors League Fund assistance must be career writers with a substantial body of work in one of more of the following categories: book authors with at least one titlepublished by an established traditional publisher; authors with multiple titles are given priority; journalists, critics, essayists, short story writers, and poets with a substantial body of work in periodicals with a national or broad circulation.
The Writers’ Emergency Fund is intended to assist fiction and non-fiction authors, poets, playwrights, screenwriters, translators, and journalists.
Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund
This fund is to help at least 100 queer writers of color who have been financially impacted by the current COVID-19. Priority will be given to queer trans women of color and queer disabled writers of color.
