Grants Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants
Opportunity Description
U.S. National Deadline: December 3, 2025 – 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 who:
- Have sudden, unanticipated opportunities to present their work to the public when there is insufficient time to seek other sources of funding
- Incur unexpected or unbudgeted expenses for projects close to completion with committed exhibition or performance dates
Emergency Grants is the only active, multi-disciplinary program that offers immediate, project-based assistance of this kind to artists living and working anywhere in the United States, for projects occurring in the U.S. and abroad.
GRANT
Each month FCA receives an average of 100 Emergency Grant applications and makes approximately 12-21 grants. Grants range in amount from $500 to $3,000, and the average grant is now $1,900.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENT
- Applicants must be living in the United States or U.S. territories and have a U.S. Tax ID Number (SSN, EIN, ITIN, or other)
- Applicants must have committed performance or exhibition opportunities, and be able to provide specific dates at the time of application.
- Applicants must be individual artists, or an individual representing an artist collective, ensemble, or group. Curators, producers, workshop organizers, organizations, or arts presenters are not eligible to apply.
- Applicants may not reapply for a project for which they have previously been denied funding.
- If you have received an Emergency Grant or a Grants to Artists award from FCA, you must wait three years from the date of your past award before reapplying.
Emergency Grants applications are only accepted through an online form.
Receipt of your application will be acknowledged via an automated email. Please be aware that communication from FCA may unintentionally go to your Spam folder.
Please do not contact FCA about the status of your application.
About:
Emergency Grants are supported in part by generous grants from: Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Cowles Charitable Trust, The Kenneth and Anne Griffin Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New York City Council District 33/Council Member Stephen Levin, Thanksgiving Fund, and Trust for Mutual Understanding. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Since its inception in 1963, the mission of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts has been to encourage, sponsor, and promote innovative work in the arts created and presented by individuals, groups, and organizations. Its legacy continues today with unrestricted, by-nomination grants supporting pioneering work across the fields of dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry, and the visual arts. A fund is also maintained to assist artists with emergencies and unexpected opportunities related to their work. To date, over 900 artists have made these grants possible by contributing paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs to fourteen fund-raising exhibitions held over the years.
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
820 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10014
Telephone 212.807.7077
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