Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) is the NEA’s largest grant program for organizations, providing expansive funding opportunities to strengthen the nation’s arts and culture ecosystem across a wide range of artistic disciplines. Through project-based funding, the program supports opportunities to elevate artists and designers as integral and essential to a healthy and vibrant society, celebrate the nation’s creativity and/or cultural heritage, facilitate cross-sector collaborations that center the arts at the intersection of other disciplines, and support arts and design projects with a focus on advancing the health and well-being of individuals and communities.

Application deadlines are February 15 and July 6, 2024, for projects taking place beginning in 2025. Please note, the February deadline is the only opportunity to apply for Design funding in 2024. Please also note that the guidelines have been updated with new language about the Design ecosystem and NEA’s priorities for funding.

From the typeface on this page to the neighborhood in which you live, every object and place is the result of design. Design surrounds us, influences our experiences, and has a direct impact on the quality of our lives.

The NEA’s Design program defines our particular ecosystem as a complex and interdependent set of relationships that start with national and local design organizations, with designers at the center. The organizations range from discipline-specific presenters and conveners, to service organizations, to museums, community design centers, university programs, and educational initiatives that engage youth and adults, as well as other organizations whose work involves design. These groups and individuals are connected to each other based on design discipline; priorities and values; and/or identities, including ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Through these connections they build virtual communities that nurture designers and influence the field of design; and they impact local communities across the country, engaging the arts and cultural organizations, government, local businesses, and people that live and work there.

Through our work, the NEA aims to strengthen the design ecosystem by supporting a wide range of design disciplines, including architecture, communications and graphic design, fashion design, historic preservation, industrial and product design, interior design, landscape architecture, inclusive and/or accessible design, rural design, social impact design, biodesign, and urban design. Design projects shape cultural and civic policies that influence the production, activation, and experience of design; lead to advances in the design field; encourage the creation and dissemination of national models of design excellence; and offer public engagement from the scale of the individual up through whole communities.

Applicants may request cost share/matching grants ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.

We are offering guidelines webinars to help you navigate the updated application:

General GAP Application Guidelines Webinar
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm ET

Design-specific Guidelines Webinar
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm ET