Our curated list of arts opportunities and artist resources in Philadelphia.
Grants & Fellowships
The Awesome Foundation
The Philadelphia chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants.
A Blade of Grass Fellowship
The ABOG Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art supports courageous artists in creating exchanges, experiences, and structures to enact social change.
Burning Man Arts
This program funds highly interactive, community-driven works of art that prioritize community involvement in their development, execution and display.
Creative Capital
Creative Capital supports innovative and adventurous artists across the country through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services.
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance Project Stream
Project Stream makes competitive grants up to $2,500 to individual artists, non-profit organizations and fiscally-sponsored organizations for innovative, community-based arts projects.
The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation
The Foundation helps young artists acquire training, skills and competence in traditional artistic methods.
Knight Foundation
The Knight Foundation seeks innovative ideas that advance informed and engaged communities.
Leeway Foundation
Leeway Foundation’s grantmaking programs honor women and trans* artists and cultural producers for their ability to create social change through their artistic and cultural work.
The National Endowment for the Arts’ ART WORKS
Through project-based funding, Art Works supports public engagement with, and access to, various forms of excellent art across the nation.
The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage
Center funding has made possible thousands of performing arts events, history and visual arts exhibitions, and other public programs, while Pew Fellowships provide unrestricted grants to individual artists working in all disciplines.
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Pollock-Krasner grants have enabled artists to create new work, purchase needed materials and pay for studio rent, as well as their personal and medical expenses.
The Puffin Foundation
The Puffin Foundation Ltd. seeks to open the doors of artistic expression by providing grants to artists and art organizations who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities due to their race, gender, or social philosophy.
Small but Mighty Arts
SBMA gives Philadelphia artists a creative spark to pursue their art.
Artist Loans
Circle of Aunts & Uncles
A multi-generational project to provide low-interest loans and social capital to under-resourced entrepreneurs in order to co-create a more equitable, compassionate, sustainable, and vibrant local economy in the Greater Philadelphia region.
Entreprenuer Works Vendor Loans
Entrepreneur Works is a Philly-based nonprofit that offers access to microloans, business training, and one-on-one guidance to hundreds of entrepreneurs each year
Hebrew Free Loan Society
Interest-free loans to members of the Philadelphia Jewish community.
Kiva
Kiva is a nonprofit that facilitates 0% interest loans for U.S. entrepreneurs.
Philadelphia Business Lending Network
For small businesses in Philadelphia, this service provides access to dozens of nonprofit and for-profit lenders with one form.
Tools, Guides & Support
Artists U
Artists U is a grassroots, artist-run platform for changing the working conditions of artists. Make art. Don’t starve.
CultureWorks
CultureWorks is a management commons for arts, heritage, and creative communities — a platform of space, human capital, and services to help artists not only survive, but flourish.
Corzo Center Consulting Services
One-on-one consulting for Philadelphian artists starting or growing businesses.
InLiquid Art + Design
InLiquid is a free public hub that showcases Philadelphia’s vast visual arts culture, online and in the InLiquid Gallery and satellite exhibition spaces.
The pARTnership Movement
When arts and businesses partner, everyone profits.
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
PCA fosters the excellence, diversity and vitality of the arts in Pennsylvania and broadens the availability and appreciation of those arts throughout the state.
National Endowment for the Arts’ “How to do Creative Placemaking” Toolkit
An action-oriented guide for making places better.
National Art Strategies
A leader in education programs and artist resources for the arts and culture field.
NKCDC Artist Resources
Free Housing Services
Whether you own or rent your home, NKCDC’s certified housing advisors can help with all your housing needs
Homebuyer Workshops
A free, four-hour class with lenders, realtor insurance agents, home inspection agents and other housing experts
First Fridays
Celebrate the creative spirit of the River Wards on the first Friday of every month.
NKCDC Garden
The green space at Frankford Avenue and Berks Street regularly hosts community events and markets featuring local artists, musicians, and vendors.
Marketing, Promotion, and Community on Social Media
NKCDC supports and promotes a thriving arts and creative business scene across the community.
Help for Philly artists during Covid
A long list of organizations stepped forward with help for Philly artists and entrepreneurs affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Please tell us if you know of others.
- Arts and Culture Leaders of Color Emergency Fund intends to support artists or art administrators who identify as a person of color whose income has been directly impacted by COVID-19.
- Artist Relief is an initiative by Creative Capital and several national grantmakers for immediate, unrestricted emergency funding of $5,000 for individual artists of all disciplines.
- Artist Relief Project is an initiative of Artly World to assist artists, musicians, and performers impacted by the COVID-19 crisis with a short-term relief cash stipend or long-term assistance such as programs and resources.
- COVID-19 Arts Aid PHL provides grants up to $500 for individual artists and up to $1,000 for small arts and culture organizations.
- Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+) has a dedicated emergency response fund for artists dealing with health impacts from the coronavirus.
- Emergency Gap Relief Fund for Philly’s Black Working Artists is from the Village of Arts and Humanities and does what it says.
- Foundation for Contemporary Artists is providing relief for a canceled performance or exhibition due to COVID-19.
- MusicCares Foundation provides short-term financial assistance for personal or addiction needs that have arisen due to unforeseen circumstances.
- Musicians Foundation Emergency Aid is temporarily closed due to a high volume of applicants, but will reopen.
- The NDN COVID-19 Response Project is designed to provide rapid response resources to Indigenous artists, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
- PEN America Writers’ Emergency Fund provides small grants to published or produced writers in acute or unexpected financial crisis.
- Philadelphia Performing Artists’ Emergency Fund was created to assist Philly performing artists whose income has been impacted by show cancellations, slowing ticket sales, or low turnout during the pandemic.
- Rauschenberg Emergency Grants provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 for unexpected medical emergencies.
Many of the Philadelphia-friendly artist resource organizations on this site are developing their own crisis response. You may also be eligible for a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Other Lists
- Authors League Fund publishes a list of emergency resources, and helps career authors, dramatists, journalists, and poets in emergency circumstances.
- COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resource is a clearinghouse for financial, legal and health assistance.
- Creative Capital is compiling a a list of resources for artists working in all disciplines, as well as arts philanthropists and arts professionals.