A new grant opportunity is available to offer support for arts events in Northwest Kansas.
According to the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, they are offering a new grant opportunity for communities in the 26-county Hansen service area. The new NW Kansas Arts grants are designed to bring more arts events to Northwest Kansas by assisting with the artist fee/contract. Applicants are required to secure funding for expenses beyond the artist contract, such as facility rental, food, marketing, etc.
Applications are accepted at any time, following the Foundation’s regular monthly grant schedule.
A single application is available for the NW Kansas Arts Events Grant. The application includes events done in partnership with the Mid-America Arts Alliance or events featuring Kansas-based artists.
Grants in partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance Regional Touring Program
For communities that wish to bring in an artist from outside of Kansas, the Foundation is partnering with the Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) Regional Touring Program (RTP). This program provides support for presenting organizations to showcase the work of artists from outside their home states.
The Mid-America Arts Alliance offers grants that cover 25-60% of the artist’s contract. The artist’s contract may include fee, travel and lodging expenses and per diem.
Presenting organizations may book artists in any discipline (music, theatre, literature, visual arts, etc.). Grants require an outreach arts activity, such as a class or workshop.
In order to qualify for the Hansen Funding for artists from outside Kansas, presenting organizations must first apply and be awarded the Mid-America Arts Alliance grant. The Hansen Foundation NW Kansas Arts Events Grant will cover the required match, up to 50% of the total artist fee.
Applications to M-AAA are accepted on a rolling deadline at any point during M-AAA’s fiscal year, which is July 1–June 30. Grants are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, until the allocation for each state is gone. Full grant criteria and application for projects happening between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019 will be available in May and can be found at maaa.org.
The partnership with Mid-America Art Alliance provides NW Kansas communities a unique opportunity to bring in out of state artists that may not have been affordable without this support. M-AAA has an established program for this work and the Hansen Foundation is pleased to offer our communities access to it. The Foundation is particularly pleased that the grants include outreach activities which further enrich the arts in our communities.
Grants for Kansas-Based Artists
Because the M-AAA program requires presenting organizations to utilize out of state artists, the Trustees of the Hansen Foundation decided to extend the Events Grants to also allow support to communities that wanted to bring in Kansas-based artists.
Presenting organizations can apply for programs or events featuring Kansas-based artists in any discipline (music, theatre, literature, visual arts, etc.) using the same application. Applications can request up to 50% of the artist fee. Similar to the M-AAA program, grants require an outreach arts activity, such as a class or workshop in NW Kansas.
Following the event, grant recipients will be required to complete a grant report to the Hansen Foundation.
By Request: Increasing Arts Opportunities
The Foundation has been working with communities in Northwest Kansas to identify programs, projects and initiatives that provide opportunities and improve the quality of life. The process, Strategic Doing, is being conducted in each of the 26 counties we serve. Through Strategic Doing, the Hansen Foundation has identified issues that have been self-identified in multiple counties. One such issue is a desire for increased arts and cultural opportunities.
The NW Kansas Arts Events Grants are part of a larger effort to address arts opportunities. The Foundation is also offering unique summer theatre workshops for students exiting 8th grade through senior in high school in partnership with the Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts. In addition, the Foundation has partnered with the Creede Reparatory Theatre to bring an original children’s theatre production, “Seeds of Change,” to any NW Kansas elementary school at no cost to the school.
Learn more about these arts opportunities at danehansenfoundation.org, click on NW Kansas Arts.
