The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (the Center) makes panel-adjudicated grants in support of the Philadelphia region’s cultural organizations and artists.
Donor Name: The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
State: Pennsylvania
Counties: Bucks County (PA), Chester County (PA), Delaware County (PA), Montgomery County (PA), Philadelphia County/city (PA)
City: Philadelphia
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 02/23/2022
Size of the Grant: $400,000
Grant Duration: 4 years
Details:
Through Project grants, the Center’s funding has made possible thousands of performing arts events, history and visual arts exhibitions, and other public programs, while their Pew Fellowships annually provide unrestricted grants to individual artists working in all disciplines.
Goals
The goals of Center grant making are to—
- Support substantive projects that grow out of mission; demonstrate a high level of artistic and programmatic excellence, ambition, and conceptual rigor; and that reflect the organization’s commitment to multiple perspectives and inclusive practices in program design, development, and impact.
- Support projects that represent a thoughtful development of an existing line of work or a heretofore unexplored direction.
- Support partnerships and collaborations outside of the applicant’s habitual frame of reference (i.e. disciplinary, geographic, cultural, etc.) that are significant and build new relationships and audiences.
- Support projects that provide inspirational models for cultural practice in the region and beyond.
- Support projects that expand the audience reach and impact of the applicant’s programming, deepen meaningful engagement with diverse audiences, and build toward future audiences for the organization’s creative work.
Funding Categories
Recognizing the fluid boundaries in the presentation and interpretation of material and visual culture, and in performance, The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (the Center) has two areas of funding with the same goals for cultural production.
These areas support projects that are multi- or interdisciplinary, as well as those based in a specific discipline, but all projects must manifest new understandings of content through their public realization.
All projects must be presented to audiences as a primary consideration in their design and have the necessary administrative structure and expertise to realize the grant to its maximum public impact.
- Areas of programming that may be considered within Exhibitions & Public Interpretation (EPI) include public display and/or interpretation of artworks, historical artifacts, scientific objects, living collections, archives, buildings, stories, or ideas; film, video, or other time-based media presentations and technology platforms; and all other forms of exhibitions and public cultural interpretation, including those that take place in public spaces, online, and/or make use of participatory strategies.
- Areas of programming that may be considered within Performance include original works or new treatments of existing works in all performance forms including those drawn from archival sources; film, video, and other movingimage performance works whose development and public presentation is interpreted through the project’s performative intentions; distribution and installation of performance using experimental media or technology platforms; and performances in public spaces, online, and/or making use of participatory strategies.
Funding Information
Maximum allowable grant requests for all Project grants are dependent on organizational budget size and range from $75,000 to $300,000. Organizations with an operating budget minimum of $1 million and that meet additional criteria may be eligible to apply for Project grants up to $400,000. Up to three organizations may pool their individual grants towards a collaborative effort, not to exceed $800,000 in total.
Grant Period
The implementation period for Project grants extends from October 1, 2022, and must conclude by June 30, 2025. Public events that are part of a Center grant should generally not be scheduled to take place before March 1, 2023.
Eligibility Criteria
The Center’s 2022 cycle is open to organizations whose primary mission and defining purpose is the presentation of art and public history programs for public audiences. In addition, non-art and non-history organizations who wish to apply, such as academic departments, arboreta, libraries, etc., must secure in advance the appropriate personnel and project management expertise— including artistic, curatorial, producing, and administrative support—and their ability to apply is subject to Center review and approval. Social service organizations are not eligible to apply this cycle.
The Center reserves the right to determine eligibility in all instances. Threshold criteria include—
Organizations must be located in the five-county Philadelphia area (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties).
- Organizations must have 501(c)(3) designation at the time of submitting a Letter of Intent to Apply (LOI).
Organizations must have a minimum annual budget of $150,000, and must have paid, professional artistic and
managerial project staff. - Applicants with parent organizations (such as libraries, and departments/schools at academic institutions) must submit a letter of commitment from a governing official at the time of LOI submission. If awarded funding, grant contracts can only be signed by a person with legal and fiduciary responsibility for the organization.
- Organizations must have a demonstrated record of presenting professional public programs in the genre or content area identified in the proposal. For non-art or history organizations, a project-hired administrator with
appropriate expertise is required and must be clearly identified with other key leadership from the project’s inception. - They encourage applicants to tour or present Centerfunded projects outside the region when appropriate. If you are touring a project or working collaboratively with an organization outside of the region, please discuss with Center senior staff the types of costs in these instances that are and are not eligible for support.
For more information, visit Project Grants.