Business Support Funding for Creatives in 2022 Through the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy.
Apply today. Applications are due August 1st.
Tuesday July 5, 2022 | Arts & Cultural Affairs
The City of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs invites Minneapolis based small creative businesses, and arts and cultural nonprofit organizations to apply for business support funding for creatives. Two new funding opportunities are now available under a Business Support Funds for Creatives umbrella.
In 2021, the City of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs Department received one-time Federal recovery funding from the American Rescue Plan and has partnered with Springboard for the Arts, Juxtaposition Arts and Artspace to provide Business Support Services to creative organizations that have been economically impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic. The purpose of the Arts & Cultural Affairs American Rescue Plan funded grant programing is to assist the creative sector’s recovery and to support the recovery of the creative workforce, with an emphasis on supporting the most impacted creative sector industries and Minneapolis communities.
The Creative Apprenticeship and Artist Driven Marketing grant opportunities will support rebuilding and improving organizational capacity to not only return to business or improve business outcomes, but to plan for the future. Arts & Cultural Affairs is committed to supporting the development and growth of the creative sector, and especially women and BIPOC creatives.
Applications are now open for:
1) Creative Apprenticeship grants. Available to creative businesses and entrepreneurs, and arts and cultural nonprofit organizations for capacity building, job creation and employment. Funding will support grantees in the design of a new apprenticeship program and onboard an apprentice into their business or organization for a 6-month period. The planning phase will be aided by professional counseling services from Springboard for the Arts, resulting in the design of an apprenticeship program.
Funding amount: $18,000
Applications opened: July 1 and are due on August 1, 2022
2) Artist Driven Marketing grants. Available to arts and cultural nonprofit organizations to design a marketing plan and implement initial elements of the plan. The planning phase will be aided by professional counseling services from Springboard for the Arts, resulting in a marketing plan for the grantee; The implementation phase will be initiated with professional marketing services provided by Juxtaposition Arts.
Value of services: $8,000
Applications opened: July 1 and are due on August 1, 2022
Apply here.
Interested in applying or have questions?
The information session of July 11th was video recorded and can be viewed here. Use passcode: bJ08.67S
The information session of July 20th was video recorded and can be viewed here. Use passcode: g87N=2V&
An in-person application clinic will be hosted by Arts & Cultural Affairs on Tuesday, July 26 from 2:00-4:00 pm for anyone with questions or in need of assistance with their application at: Rare Productions, 3010 E Lake St., Mpls, MN 55406. RSVP here to attend.
Eligibility criteria:
Applicants are eligible to receive only one category of support.
The following eligibility criteria is required of all applicants for this funding:
All applicants must have a primary business address in Minneapolis.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate economic hardship due to the pandemic and must demonstrate a revenue or profit drop of at least 25% over the pandemic period of 2020 and 2021.
Arts and cultural nonprofit organizations with a budget size of $400,000 or under are eligible to apply.
Creative businesses and entrepreneurs with annual revenues of $200,000 or under are eligible to apply.
Nonprofit social service organizations serving cultural communities with affiliated arts and culture divisions are eligible to apply but only if they can provide separate budget data for their arts and culture services for the pandemic period.
Artist Entrepreneurs who have received Creative Response Funding in 2020, 2021 or 2022 are not eligible to apply (to ensure that limited resources benefit as many individuals and organizations as possible).
To keep up to date on all Arts & Cultural Affairs grant opportunities and deadlines, sign up for the Arts & Cultural Affairs newsletter here.
Publisher's Note: The name, "The Office of Arts, Culture & the Creative Economy" has been updated on August 13, 2023 where it appeared within the content of this article to "Arts & Cultural Affairs" to reflect its new name as a department of the City of Minneapolis.
