Colorado: Collaborative Grant Making in Support of Social Practice Projects

This August, Colorado Creative Industries (CCI), in partnership with the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, the Hemera Foundation and Denver’s RedLine Contemporary Art Center, launched a funding initiative that aims to support social practice projects and to build the capacity of the artists and arts organizations behind these projects. The goals of the two-year Arts in Society pilot program include fostering community engagement, surfacing cultural relevancy, encouraging cross-sector cooperation, broadening the role of the arts in society, and demonstrating the value of socially engaged arts practices and projects. Through collaborative grant making, the program partners will award 30-50 grants totaling $1 million over the course of the pilot. Individual grants, which will range from $10,000 to $50,000, are available to artists and arts organizations in communities statewide. Non-arts groups also are eligible, though they must support artistic excellence as it is one of the funding criteria. To learn more about CCI’s role in launching and rolling out the pilot program, contact CCI Director Margaret Hunt.