Illinois: Creative Accelerator Fund

Photo of jazz guitarist Bobby Broom by Ernest Gregory

In 2023, the Illinois Arts Council (IAC) began to reevaluate its grant-making program, policies and procedures. As part of this process, IAC partnered with NASAA to conduct a qualitative and quantitative assessment of IAC’s grant making to identify funding gaps and recommend strategies that IAC can pursue to reduce barriers to arts support. These findings, in addition to a comprehensive listening tour attended by over 150 organizations as well as individual artists, legislators and local government officials, led to IAC’s Bold New Changes, a suite of policies to restructure and revamp its grant-making opportunities and procedures.

As part of IAC’s Bold New Changes, the agency recently announced a new Creative Accelerator Fund. This program diverges from older fellowship funding and project support paradigms. Rather than restrict resources to the production of a specific project, the Creative Accelerator Fund provides direct economic support to Illinois artists. By providing direct support to artists and creatives, the fund will help strengthen a creative workforce that constitutes a significant portion of Illinois’s creative and economic activity, which in turn benefits the state as a whole.

The Creative Accelerator Fund will provide 130 artists with a flexible $10,000 award based on randomized selection. Each IAC region has its own allocation, and recipients will be selected from the applications submitted in that region. To be eligible, individual artists must demonstrate an active and sustained practice, be age 21 or older, be established as an Illinois resident, and not be currently enrolled full-time at a college or university.

For more information, contact IAC Deputy Director Encarnacion Teruel.