Artists Knowledge Center

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Looking for Vermont Flood Disaster resources? Visit our Vermont Flood Disaster Resources page.

For information on the Council’s grant programs for artists, click here.

Business and Legal Resources

CreativeGround is the New England art directory and a great resource for finding artist professional services. Filter your search for Activities/Services > Professional Services.

Fractured U is part of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit membership organization that supports the arts and creative industries. Members can take advantage of online courses in entrepreneurship and small business development.

Vermont Small Business Development Center (VtSBDC) provides no-cost business advising and low-cost training to all Vermont entrepreneurs starting or growing their own businesses.

Creative Capital supports artists across the country through funding, counsel, and career development services.

Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston provides direct legal and business services and ongoing educational programs to the creative community. Trainings and resources are available online.

New York Foundation for the Arts provides free access to resources including legal, money, exhibiting, technology and interviews with arts professionals.

The Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE) is a non-profit economic empowerment organization whose mission is to strengthen communities and the economy by supporting women to launch and successfully sustain businesses.

Vermont Law School’s Streaming Rights Clearance Guide details resources and procedures for obtaining the necessary intellectual property rights for streaming online performances, music, and media.

Insurance and Disaster Preparedness

The Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+) offers direct emergency financial assistance to craft artists and educational information for all artists about business development, health, safety, and insurance.

Fractured Atlas is a nonprofit membership organization that supports the arts and creative industries. Members can take advantage of various resources and services including the purchase of insurance policies tailored to the needs of artists, including teaching artists.

The Vermont Arts & Culture Disaster and Resilience Network (VACDaRN) provides resources and training in readiness and in how to respond in the event of an emergency to mitigate the impact of disasters and ensure that our communities recover quickly and grow more resilient.

The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Emergency Grant program is intended to provide interim financial assistance to qualified painters, printmakers, and sculptors whose needs are the result of an unforeseen, catastrophic incident, and who lack the resources to meet that situation.  Each grant is given as one-time assistance for a specific emergency, examples of which are fire, flood, or emergency medical need.

The Haven Foundation offers interim financial assistance to freelance professionals in the arts who face crises. The Foundation’s reach is the United States, and its awards are granted with a view to helping individuals overcome temporary adversity and return to full-time work.

Additional Resources and Sources of Funding

Vermont Community Foundation, grant funding

Artist Communities Alliance (ACA), an international association of artists’ residencies

Community Capital of Vermont, small business financing and support

Foundation for Contemporary Arts, grants to encourage innovation, experimentation, and potential in the arts (dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry, and the visual arts).

Change, Inc. provides one-time emergency grants of up to $1,000 to artists of any discipline. Applicants must submit a detailed letter describing the financial emergency, copies of outstanding bills, medical fee estimates, and current financial statements, along with a career resume, reviews, exhibition or performance announcements, and two letters of reference from someone in affiliated field. For more information, write to:
Change Emergency Funds
Change, Inc.
P.O. Box 54
Captiva, FL 33924

The Sustainable Arts Foundation, funding and support for artists and writers with children

The Native Arts and Culture Foundation supports Native artists in the United States with innovative and multifaceted approaches to literature, dance, visual arts, film, storytelling, music, and traditional arts.

First Peoples Fund sustains culture and cultivates entrepreneurial initiatives and community development programs for and alongside Native artists.

The Black Genius Foundation (TBGF) celebrates and invests in the intellectual and creative genius of Black artists, arts professionals and arts organizations that have committed themselves to creating and supporting work dedicated to and rooted in the African Diaspora. Through granting and awards, public programs and digital initiatives, TBGF elevates the past-present-future continuum of how the African Diaspora continues to define genius.

The Vermont Dance Alliance is a foundation for Vermont dancers and a public platform for dance in Vermont. The alliance cultivates deeper relationships between its members, and helps to foster a thriving artistic community throughout the state. Their website also provides links to artists, classes and events throughout Vermont.

TheaterEngine is an online promotional tool and database serving artists and audiences. For artists, TheaterEngine is an online promotional tool for individuals, production companies and venues working in the performing arts. It is also a database containing all past shows and show information entered into it. With enough information, TheaterEngine becomes a robust tool for finding the people and resources in any given area with links to their past and current work. For audiences, TheaterEngine is an online resource for information about upcoming shows, performing artists, production companies, and venues in any given area.

Big Heavy World is a nonprofit music organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Vermont-made music. Their projects and online resources include an artist directory and business referral network, an alliance of musicians and presenters, a record label, a public listening library, an online music shop, a tour van that they loan out, musician summits and educational events, a weekly local music radio show and community radio station, conversations with civic leaders about Vermont’s music community, and more. Their volunteer-staffed music office is located in Burlington, Vermont.

Vermont Production Collective is a grassroots organization connecting the film, video, photography, sound, and graphics industries in Vermont. The collective was created by working professionals to support established and aspiring artists in film production and related fields. Vermont Production Collective exists to facilitate networking, collaboration, mentorships, and more in Vermont’s film and media production community.

Creative Ground is a directory for artists and creative businesses in New England. The site is visited more than 50,000 times each year. Use this robust directory to promote your work inside and beyond Vermont; your listing can include images, sound or video clips, links to other pages, and references.

Covid-19

Visit our Covid-19 resources page.

Digital Programming

Looking to improve your digital programming? Our Digital Capacity Technical Assistance webinars cover all your digital programming needs, from video creation, websites, online marketing, legal considerations, digital access for inclusion of disabled people, and much more. Explore our library of technical assistance videos.

For Specific Disciplines

Visual Arts

Sources of Funding

The Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grants, available to painters, sculptors, and printmakers creating art for at least twenty years and in financial need

Pollack-Krasner Foundation, grants to visual artists—painters, sculptors, and artists who work on paper, including printmakers. The Foundation encourages applications from artists who have genuine financial needs that are not necessarily catastrophic.

Joan Mitchell Foundation, offers a range of programs and resources designed to meet the commitment of artists to sustain their creative practices.

Artists’ Fellowship, Inc. assists professional fine artists and their families in the event of emergency, disability, or bereavement.

Additional Resources

Finding a Solution—the Vermont Way is a story about work by one artist that resembled another’s and resulted in a resource guide with copyright resources.

Crafts

Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+), to safeguard and sustain the careers of craft artists and to provide emergency resources that benefit all artists. Assistance includes grants, no-interest loans, access to resources, waivers, and discounts on booth fees, and donations of craft supplies and equipment.

Literary Arts

Sources of Funding

PEN America Grants & Fellowships support writers and works-in-progress in diverse genres including translation, YA and middle grade writing, and oral history. PEN America also offers a robust national program of fellowships for emerging writers and writing for justice. In addition, PEN America provides community engagement funding to Members, writers, and allies to support activity around press freedom defense, the intersections of literature and advocacy, and the defense of free expression more broadly.

American Society of Journalists and Authors Writer’s Emergency Assistance Fund offers first-time grants of up to $3,500 for established nonfiction writers in crisis situations.

Author’s League Fund, interest-free loans of between $2,000 and $3,000 to writers with severe medical/health-related problems and other serious misfortunes

The Dramatists Guild Foundation Grants, emergency and need-based grants for individual playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists.

Additional Resources

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, information on legal issues, self-publishing, literary agents, etc. The SFWA Emergency Medical Fund offers interest-free loans to members facing unexpected medical expenses.

Speculative Literature Foundation, various resources for writers including information about emergency resources, grants, publishers, workshops, self-publishing, and taxes

The New Play Exchange (NPX) is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. The NPX, a National New Play Network program, is flipping the script on the ways in which new work is shared and discovered. National New Play Network (NNPN) is an alliance of professional theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays.

The Writers Guild of America, East, AFL-CIO (WGAE) is a labor union representing thousands of members who write content for motion pictures, television, news and online media. The Guild negotiates and administers contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of its members; conducts programs, seminars and events on issues of interest to writers; and presents writers’ views to various bodies of government. As a Guild member, you have access to health insurance benefits in a variety of ways, depending on your current work status.

Performing Arts and Film

Sources of Funding

Sweet Relief Musicians’ Fund, financial assistance to all types of career musicians struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems.

The Dramatists Guild Foundation Grants, emergency and need-based grants for individual playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists.

Directors Guild Foundation, a labor organization that represents the creative and economic rights of directors and members of the directorial team working in film, television, commercials, documentaries, news, sports and new media. It provides no interest, confidential loans to Guild members in good standing who are in need of emergency financial assistance.

Motion Picture Pioneers Assistance Fund, aid for veterans of the theatrical community (exhibition, distribution, and production) who are encountering an illness, injury, or life-changing event.

LEF Foundation, New England supports the creation of new work by documentary filmmakers, living in the region.

The Ford Foundation’s JustFilms grants support artist-driven film and new media storytelling projects that explore aspects of inequality, as well as the organizations and networks that support these projects.

The Actors Fund is a national human services organization here to meet the needs of our entertainment community with a unique understanding of the challenges involved in a life in the arts. Services include emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, senior care, secondary career development and more.

MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly influence the health and welfare of the music community.

National Endowment for the Humanities Programs include:
Media Projects program supports the development, production, and distribution of radio, podcast, television, and long-form documentary film projects that engage general audiences with humanities ideas in creative and appealing ways. Contact Information: Division of Public Programs Team (202) 606-8269, [email protected]

Short Documentaries program supports production of single films or a series of thematically related short films addressing significant figures, events, or ideas. The proposed film(s) must be intended for regional or national distribution, via broadcast, festivals, and/or online distribution. Contact Information: Division of Public Programs Team (202) 606-8269, [email protected]

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s USArtists International supports performances by U.S. artists at impactful international festivals and performing arts marketplaces outside the United States and its territories. The program supports the engagements of exemplary solo artists and ensembles across all performing arts disciplines including dance, music, theater, multidisciplinary work, and folk/traditional arts. USAI provides grants of up to $18,000 toward eligible expenses, including travel.

Additional Resources

The New Play Exchange (NPX) is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. The NPX, a National New Play Network program, is flipping the script on the ways in which new work is shared and discovered. National New Play Network (NNPN) is an alliance of professional theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays.

The Writers Guild of America, East, AFL-CIO (WGAE) is a labor union representing thousands of members who write content for motion pictures, television, news and online media. The Guild negotiates and administers contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of its members; conducts programs, seminars and events on issues of interest to writers; and presents writers’ views to various bodies of government. As a Guild member, you have access to health insurance benefits in a variety of ways, depending on your current work status.