WESTAF Regional Arts Resilience Fund

WESTAF is proud to partner with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on a new relief grant to support arts organizations in the 13-state western region. The $10 million Regional Arts Resilience Fund is a first-of-its-kind relief and recovery grant to each of the six US Regional Arts Organizations and is designed to help mitigate the financial threat to the sector caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting small and mid-sized arts organizations of all artistic disciplines in rural and urban areas that are regarded by their peers as having statewide, regional, or national impact. The Fund will also prioritize those organizations that are most at risk during this crisis, including historically under-resourced organizations, as well as those who serve under-resourced populations, communities, and art forms. 

Through the WESTAF Regional Arts Resilience Fund, WESTAF will administer the re-granting of over $1.7 million across it’s 13-state region, which includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. In alignment with WESTAF’s strategic vision for increasing opportunities, benefits, and resources for historically underrepresented communities in a manner that results in quantifiable and systemic change, the fund will support organizations led by and/or predominantly serving individuals from historically marginalized communities that identify as: Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC); low-income, LGBTQIA+; and/or rural, remote and under-resourced.

WESTAF will administer the program for organizations recommended by regional advisors over the summer of 2020 with awards typically ranging from $30,000 to $75,000, with a few exceptional $100,000 grants. For more information or questions, contact grants@westaf.org.