Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant

Overview

Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network began in 2012 as an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs and is managed in partnership with Americans for the Arts, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, and Mid-America Arts Alliance.

Creative Forces seeks to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for military service members and veterans exposed to trauma, as well as their families and caregivers, by increasing knowledge of and access to clinical creative arts therapies and community arts engagement. Since 2017, Creative Forces has invested in community arts engagement projects in order to advance understanding of the benefits and impacts for military-connected populations who have been exposed to trauma. More information, including project descriptions and research reports on existing Creative Forces clinical and community programming, can be found on the Creative Forces National Resource Center.

These Creative Forces Community Engagement Grants are intended to support non-clinical arts engagement programs taking place in healthcare, community, or virtual settings. Creative Forces-supported community programs have involved a range of arts activities, including visual, written, and performing arts offered through single events, drop-in programs, and ongoing engagement led by artists in residence, teaching artists, or creative arts therapists.

Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant Program projects should engage military-connected individuals through experiences of art or art-making with one or more of the following participant outcomes in mind:

• Creative Expression: Participants have a better understanding of themselves and others by creating or engaging with art.
• Social Connectedness: Participants have supportive relationships in their life and a sense of belonging to a community.
• Resilience: Participants feel they can rebound from stress, unexpected events, or life’s challenges.
• Independence and successful adaptation to civilian life: Participants have both an individual and shared sense of purpose, as well a positive self-worth, that supports adapting and readjusting to civilian life.

This grant program also seeks to advance the capacity of the applicant and its partner(s) in one or more of the following ways:

• Networked Organization: Grantees build networks and partnerships that support the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs for participants leading to stronger outcomes for participants.
• Strengthened Capacity: Grantees build their capacity to design, implement, and evaluate programs that meet the need of participants
• Increased Value of the Arts: Grantee partnerships and activities lead to an increased understanding of the value and impact of the arts across local participating networks and communities.

Limit one Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant Program application per applicant organization per fiscal year. Apply to the internal competition on InfoReady.

• Matching grants of up to $25,000 for one-year advanced projects
• Matching grants of up to $10,000 for one-year emerging projects
• Matching grants of up to $50,000 for two-year advanced projects

Successful applicants have included:

• Arts nonprofits with a mission that focuses on serving military communities
• Performing arts nonprofits (theaters, dance companies, musical groups) looking to expand their mission to include programming for military communities
• Military and veteran-serving nonprofits expanding their services to include the arts
• Municipal and regional arts centers expanding and designing course offerings for military communities
• Community radio stations
• Universities that include community engagement in their arts, health, and military programming