FY17 NEA Grants to Orchestras

NEA grants support community partnerships and learning opportunities with orchestras

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded 106 grants to orchestras through the Grants for Arts Projects categories in FY2017, totaling $2,435,000. In FY17 orchestras directly received NEA grant support through Challenge America and Art Works in the discipline categories of music, arts education, and media arts. Awards to all arts disciplines through the NEA’s largest grant categories – Art Works and Challenge America – numbered 2,133 and totaled $51,421,000 million.

In addition to the grants awarded through the Grants for Arts Projects categories, FY2017 funding supports the following:

• Congress requires that 40% of NEA grant funds be made available directly to the states; 63 awards totaling $50.53 million has been awarded through Partnership Grants to state and regional arts agencies. Orchestras, in turn, benefit from grants at the state and local level.

• Additional FY2017 grants include $540,000 in Research Grants, awards for National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards, and the NEA also allocates funds to national initiatives, including but not limited to the NEA/ Walter Reed Healing Arts Partnership, the Big Read, Poetry Out Loud, literature fellowships, Our Town, and Art Works: Creativity Connects – which awarded a $75,000 grant to the Philadelphia Orchestra to support a music therapy program for Philadelphia’s homeless population in partnership with Broad Street Ministry, which provides a wide array of services for Philadelphia’s chronically homeless, many of whom suffer from mental illnesses.

Below is a list of major grants to orchestras and programs related to the orchestra field. Complete lists of grant amounts and project descriptions for awards in all disciplines and categories may be found on the NEA website at www.arts.gov.

• Art Works (Part 1)
• Art Works (Part 2)
• Challenge America