Applications for 2024 Arts and Culture Project Grants are Now Open

The city invites community members to apply for the Boulder Arts Commission’s 2024 cycle of cultural grants. Applications are open for community projects, arts education projects, professional development scholarships, grant writing support and more. Grants are available for organizations, individuals and classrooms. Applications are available in English or Spanish.

Information sessions about the 2024 Boulder Arts Commission cultural grants will be held on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 11:30 a.m. in the Community Vitality Arts + Culture Offices (1500 Pearl St., Suite #300) and over Zoom on Wednesday, Dec. 13 at 4 p.m. The session on Dec. 13 will include a conversation with an arts commissioner about the decision-making process. Please RSVP to Arts Program Manager Lauren Click at clickl@bouldercolorado.gov for meeting access information. This program will be live interpreted into Spanish. For a live interpretation of this event in another language, please alert Lauren Click no later than 48 hours in advance at the same email address.

Each year, the Boulder Arts Commission awards grants to support the well-being, prosperity and joy of the community through creativity. By supporting local arts organizations, classrooms and artists, the Arts Commission funding enhances Boulder’s vibrancy, creates social infrastructure and supports the local economy. During the 2023 cultural grants cycle, the Arts Commission granted 156 awards. Altogether, the Arts Commission will provide nearly $1,050,000 in community funding for the arts during 2024.

"Our recent study of the cultural economy, Arts and Economic Prosperity 6, clearly demonstrates a big return on the investment of our grants program in the prosperity of our city,” said City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde. “The investment goes further, advancing our Racial Equity Plan as demonstrated in the grant given to The Dairy Arts Center for their Native American Heritage Month Market or the funding for artist Samuel Tomatz to produce his project, 'Changing the Tide of Teen Mental Health & Suicide in Boulder ASAP' which addresses the mental health crisis. I look forward to seeing the cultural grants projects in 2024 and the many ways that our creative leaders will make progress on our city's most important priorities."

There are multiple funding opportunities for the Boulder arts community in addition to Arts Commission grants. The Office of Arts + Culture is hosting a Cultural Organizations Summit: 2024 Funding Info Session on Thursday, Dec. 14 from noon to 1:30 p.m. at NICHE Event Space (4571 Broadway St.). Attendees will enjoy presentations about 2024 funding opportunities from arts supporters across the region, including the Boulder Convention and Visitors Bureau, Boulder County Arts Alliance (BCAA), Boulder County Cultural Council (BCC), Colorado Creative Industries (CCI), Community Foundation Boulder County, Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), Create Boulder, the City of Boulder Human Relations Fund, Boulder Arts Commission, and the Office of Arts and Culture Public Art Program. Directors, staff and board members of cultural organizations are welcome to attend, as are individual artists. All cultural organizations are encouraged to send two representatives to this free summit. Please RSVP to rsvp@bouldercolorado.gov.

The City of Boulder’s Community Vitality Department is currently implementing Boulder’s Community Cultural Plan. Through a set of programs including cultural grants, public art, initiatives that support artists and the creative economy and research, the office supports the community-created Vision for Culture: Together, we will craft Boulder’s social, physical and cultural environment to include creativity as an essential ingredient for the wellbeing, prosperity and joy of everyone in the community.