Minnesota State Arts Board

The Minnesota State Arts Board is a state agency that stimulates and
encourages the creation, performance, and appreciation of the arts in the state.

Upcoming Deadlines

FY 2019 Folk and Traditional Arts

The Folk and Traditional Arts grant program is designed to enrich Minnesota communities through folk and traditional art forms being passed on, documented, practiced and shared.

The Folk and Traditional Arts grant application deadline is Friday, May 25, 2018: learn more and apply today.

FY 2019 Arts Access

Arts Access is a grant program designed to encourage strategic, long-term engagement between arts organizations and traditionally underserved communities. Grant funds may be used by an arts organization to collaborate with a community to create and/or increase access to meaningful art experiences.

The Arts Access grant application deadline is Friday, June 22, 2018: learn more and apply today.

FY 2019 Artist Initiative

The Artist Initiative grant program is designed to support and assist professional Minnesota artists at various stages in their careers by encouraging artistic development, nurturing artistic creativity, and recognizing the contributions of individual artists to the creative environment of the state of Minnesota.

There are two deadlines for the FY 2019 Artist Initiative grant application, depending on the discipline:

Literary Arts and Performing Arts: Friday, May 4, 2018—CLOSED
Visual Arts: Friday, June 29, 2018

Learn more and apply today.

FY 2019 Arts Tour Minnesota

Arts Tour Minnesota is a program designed to provide Minnesotans greater access to high quality arts activities regardless of geographic location. Grants may be used to support Minnesota presenters hosting professional tours by Minnesota and nonMinnesota artists, or to support Minnesota artists and arts organizations touring existing artworks to Minnesota communities that are outside of their home region. The program is open to tours featuring visual, literary, and performing arts.

The Arts Tour Minnesota grant application deadline is Friday, July 13, 2018: learn more and apply today.

News

Please stop by the Minnesota State Arts Board to see our current exhibition Journeys Here, a visual arts showcase, featuring work by grantees who immigrated to Minnesota or whose work is about the immigrant experience.

Office hours: Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
400 Sibley Street, Suite 200, Saint Paul, Minnesota

Help us decide

Have you ever wondered how the Arts Board decides which applications to fund? Have you ever wanted to make those decisions? Then you might be interested in serving as a volunteer advisor to the board.

The Arts Board uses a very rigorous, citizen-driven process to review grant applications, and to select artists to commission or work to purchase for the state’s permanent art collection. Each year, approximately 250 individuals serve as volunteer advisors in the board’s ten grant programs and in the Minnesota Percent for Art in Public Places program. Advisors read proposals, discuss them in a public meeting, and assign scores for each proposal. The scores help determine which proposals will be recommended to the board for approval.

The amount of time and tasks required vary, depending on the program in which the volunteer serves. Advisors must have experience or expertise in a particular area of the arts, arts funding, or nonprofit or public administration.

If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone you know to serve as an advisor, please complete and submit our volunteer form.

WebGrants

The Minnesota State Arts Board's WebGrants system is open for registration! Please view the How to Register in WebGrants tutorial, and then click Login to WebGrants to sign up.

WebGrants Overview

How to Register in WebGrants: online tutorial, PDF version
How to Use WebGrants: online tutorial, PDF version
Webgrants FAQ document: FAQ (PDF)

Login to WebGrants

Stay in Touch

If you'd like to receive information and updates from the Arts Board via e-mail, please sign-up for the board's electronic mailing list.

Creative Minnesota 2017

This new report describes the presence, characteristics, and needs of more than 100,000 individual artists and creative workers in Minnesota more comprehensively than ever before. The report also updates 2015 data about the economic impact of artists and the nonprofit arts and culture sector, now calculated at $2 billion annually. Finally, it gathers existing data from other sources to describe how Minnesotans engage in the arts and how artists engage in their communities.
http://creativemn.org/

Arts Research / Policy / Cultural Issues

Artist Employment Projections through 2018

This National Endowment for the Arts report looks at job prospects for artists and other cultural occupations from 2008 to 2018.

Come as You Are: Informal Arts Participation in Urban and Rural Communities

Attendance at traditional arts venues, such as museums and performing arts centers, is greater in urbanized areas. However, when the informal arts are considered, metro and non-metro residents enjoy arts activities at the same rates. Consideration of informal arts activities—including the personal creation of artwork and attendance at community arts venues—offers a more comprehensive measure of participation. Issued by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth:
Findings from Four Longitudinal Studies

At-risk students who have access to the arts in or out of school tend to have better academic results, better workforce opportunities, and more civic engagement, according to a National Endowment for the Arts report. By James Catterall.