Get yer stimulus loot

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is beginning the application process to award the $50 million appropriated to the NEA as part of the federal economic stimulus packages. By law, 40% of the $50 million will be passed on to the 56 state, territory and regional arts agencies.

The NEA will award the remaining $30 million through competitive grants. Individuals and organizations can apply.

I am hearing that all applicants must be previous NEA award recipients in good standing from the past four years, which doesn't make sense to me, but the NEA's forthcoming Recovery Act grant guidelines will provide details - we hope. If this is indeed a requirement, it is not only unfair, but it is divisive and unless I am missing something, quite perplexing.

Synopses of the guidelines are scheduled to be posted at grants.gov by March 8 with complete application guidelines scheduled to be posted on March 18.

Applicants must be registered at grants.gov.

The NEA urges applicants to verify their registration. If you are not registered please begin the process now as it can take up to two weeks.

To register please click here.

Full text of the latest NEA announcement follows:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides $50 million to be distributed in direct grants to fund arts projects and activities which preserve jobs in the non-profit arts sector threatened by declines in philanthropic and other support during the current economic downturn.

Forty percent of such funds will be distributed to State arts agencies and regional arts organizations and 60 percent of the funds will be competitively awarded to nonprofit organizations that meet the eligibility criteria being established for this program.

Application guidelines for two funding programs are being developed and will be posted as soon as completed and approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Synopses will be posted on Grants.gov by March 8; full guidelines on our site by March 18.

Applicants will be required to submit their applications electronically through Grants.gov, the federal government's online application system. All applicants must be registered with Grants.gov in order to submit their application.

If you have already registered with Grants.gov, renew/verify your registration with Grants.gov and make sure that all of your information is current before you apply. Organizations that are not already registered should allow at least two weeks to complete this multi-step process.

See the step-by-step instructions for registering at Get Registered.

Funding Program: Competitive Grants
One-time grants will be awarded to eligible nonprofit organizations including arts organizations, local arts agencies, statewide assemblies of local arts agencies, arts service organizations, units of state (other than state arts agencies) or local government, and a wide range of other organizations that can help advance the goals of the Arts Endowment and this program.

All applicants must be previous NEA award recipients in good standing from the past four years (NEA's forthcoming Recovery Act grant guidelines will provide details). Listings of grantees from the last four years can be found on our web site.