Community arts funding spans federal grants, state appropriations, local agency awards, and place-based cultural investment. Recent figures show both the scale of that support and the competition for it: in FY2024, U.S. state and jurisdictional arts agencies reported $740.9 million in legislative appropriations, while Arts Council England processed 16,541 grant applications in 2023/24.
Contents
- Federal grants in the United States
- State-level public funding
- Local agencies and grassroots distribution
- Community-engagement awards
- Place-based investment in England
- Demand, access, and participation
Federal grants in the United States
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reported more than 2,100 Grants for Arts Projects in FY2024, totaling $65.6 million. The same fiscal-year report recorded $2.5 million through Challenge America grants, which supported small-organization projects serving underserved groups and communities. These figures describe federal grant programs during FY2024, rather than the complete value of every public or private community arts investment.
The NEA also reported that 40% of its grantmaking funds went to the 50 states, six special jurisdictions, and six regional arts organizations in FY2024. Federal support for projects benefiting local communities through those state, jurisdictional, and regional partners was approximately $65.3 million.
The agency’s Our Town program had funded more than 700 local partnership projects since 2011. Its reported geographic reach included all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. In the FY2024 round, 68 projects were approved for $5 million from 263 eligible applications. Matching grants for that round ranged from $25,000 to $150,000 per project.
Another community-focused stream was Creative Forces Community Engagement. The FY2024 Agency Financial Report described nearly $800,000 recommended for 41 organizations delivering community-based arts projects. A program announcement reported the exact total as $769,136 for those 41 organizations. The two statements refer to the same 2024 awards, with the latter providing the precise amount.
State-level public funding
State and jurisdictional arts agencies reported $740.9 million in legislative appropriations in FY2024, down 24% from FY2023, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies report on FY2024 revenues. Excluding line items, appropriations fell 17% to $612 million.
Legislative appropriations supplied 72.4% of state arts agency revenue in FY2024. Line items passing through state arts agency budgets supplied another 15.2%, while transfers from other state funds supplied 4.9%. Together, those three sources represented 92.5% of agency revenue. State general funds alone contributed 59.6% of total state arts agency appropriations.
The statewide totals conceal different fiscal directions. Forty-four state and jurisdictional arts agencies reported increased or flat appropriations in FY2024. Twelve reported decreases, including eight with declines greater than 10%.
Line-item funding totaled $128.3 million, 44% below FY2023 and equal to 17.3% of all appropriations. Four states—Florida, Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey—accounted for 77% of FY2024 state arts agency line-item funds. That concentration matters for community organizations because line items can be tied to particular programs, places, or public purposes rather than being distributed evenly across states.
Per-resident figures provide another way to compare public support. Average state arts agency legislative appropriations were $2.19 per resident in FY2024, down $0.69 per resident from FY2023. Thirty-four state arts agencies and all jurisdictional arts agencies reported more than $1.00 in per-capita spending. Nine state arts agencies reported less than $0.50 per capita.
Local agencies and grassroots distribution
State arts agencies awarded $67,748,779 to local arts agencies in FY2024. Those awards represented 9.9% of all state arts agency grant dollars, according to 2026 State Arts Agency Grant Making Facts: Local Arts Agencies. State arts agencies made 1,561 grants to local arts agencies, or 5.3% of all state arts agency grants. The median award was $10,000.
The geographic reach was broader than the award count alone suggests. FY2024 local arts agency grants reached 1,629 communities, measured as unique census tracts receiving grants or hosting activities. Operating support has averaged more than 30% of local arts agency funding in recent years through FY2024, indicating that a substantial part of this channel supports organizational continuity as well as individual projects.
The relationship between grant size and reach is visible in the following comparison:
| Measure | FY2024 figure |
|---|---|
| State arts agency awards to local arts agencies | $67,748,779 |
| Grants to local arts agencies | 1,561 |
| Median award | $10,000 |
| Communities reached, measured by unique census tracts | 1,629 |
| Share of all state arts agency grant dollars | 9.9% |
| Share of all state arts agency grants | 5.3% |
These measures should not be treated as an average award calculation: the median award and total dollars describe different aspects of the distribution, and the community count measures places receiving grants or hosting activities.
Community-engagement awards
Creative Forces provides a more focused example of grant design around participation and access. Its pilot Community Connections projects delivered more than 200 arts experiences to 1,055 participants across 10 projects between 2018 and 2020, according to the Creative Forces Community Engagement Program.
Since 2022, Creative Forces has awarded more than $2.2 million to 101 Community Engagement projects. The program page also reports 149 supported projects across 38 states and Washington, D.C., since 2022. The project and award counts use the program’s stated periods and definitions.
Current program terms offer emerging projects matching grants of up to $10,000 for one year and advanced projects matching grants of up to $25,000 for one year. Funding supports three settings: healthcare, community, and virtual environments. These are maximum award levels, not typical or guaranteed awards.
The 2024 Creative Forces Community Engagement round was the program’s third year. Its $769,136 recommendation for 41 organizations corresponds to an average of $18,759 per recommended organization when the announced total is divided across the organizations. That is a simple average of the published total and count, not a reported award average or a claim that each organization received the same amount.
Place-based investment in England
Arts Council England identified 54 Priority Places where historical cultural investment and engagement had been low. In 2023/24, it invested £101.9 million in Priority Places, equal to 12.6% of its total investment, according to the Arts Council England Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24.
The number of National Portfolio Organisations based in Priority Places rose 92.7% under the 2023–26 portfolio to 158. Arts Council England also identified 109 Levelling Up for Culture Places outside Greater London. Those 109 places were set to receive nearly £130 million over three years through the 2023–26 portfolio, an increase of 95%.
Portfolio comparisons show how this place-based approach changed funding and organizational coverage:
| Place-based measure | Earlier portfolio | 2023–26 portfolio |
|---|---|---|
| Priority Place organisations and investment | 82; £15,662,409 | 158; £38,262,822 |
| Levelling Up for Culture organisations and investment | 109; £19,292,358 | 191; £42,802,045 |
The figures compare the 2018–22 and 2023–26 portfolios as reported by Arts Council England. They combine organization counts and investment totals; they are not per-organization averages.
Creative People and Places had received £108 million over 10 years by 2023/24. Arts Council England continued funding 38 Creative People and Places projects covering 55 local authorities in 2023/24. A separate £750,000 capital award for the Isles of Scilly cultural centre helped lever more than £15 million in match funding; that result was reported as occurring since 2021.
Demand, access, and participation
Arts Council England processed 16,541 grant applications and awarded 4,875 grants in 2023/24. It had 2,942 organisations in receipt of funding during that period. The figures describe applications, awards, and funded organizations across Arts Council England programs, not only community arts applications.
National Lottery Project Grants processed 9,642 applications in 2023/24, up from 8,792 in 2022/23. The program funded 3,084 projects in 2023/24. Those funded projects were expected to reach more than 375 million audience attendances across live, digital, and streaming events. The audience figure is an expected reach, not a completed attendance count.
Developing Your Creative Practice awards supported 1,274 artists and creatives in 2023/24. The average award rose to £11,416, compared with £9,385 in 2022/23. These awards indicate individual creative-development support alongside the larger project and organizational grants described above.
Arts Council England’s Illuminate tool had recorded almost 64,000 funded events and activities and more than 230,000 survey responses by 2023/24. Investment in areas of low cultural engagement reached 26% of overall investment in 2023/24, up from 21% in 2019/20.
For 2022/23, National Portfolio Organisations in low-cultural-engagement areas reported 3,873,803 performances, exhibitions, screenings, and festivals. Arts Council England described that total as combining known and estimated counts, so it should be read as a mixed reported-and-estimated activity measure rather than a uniformly audited attendance statistic.