The Creative Work Fund invites artists and nonprofit organizations to create new art works through collaborations. It celebrates the role of artists as problem solvers and the making of art as a profound contribution to intellectual inquiry and to the strengthening of communities. Artists are encouraged to collaborate with nonprofit organizations of all kinds.
Artists’ creativity merits philanthropic support.
Individual creativity is the source of cultural richness and diversity.
The arts can be a powerful vehicle for problem solving and community renewal.
Collaborative efforts among artists, organizations, and their constituents can generate a productive exchange of ideas and bring the arts to new audiences.
Responding to several years of declining support for artists and new art works, The Columbia Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Miriam and Peter Haas Fund, and Walter and Elise Haas Fund launched the Creative Work Fund in September 1994. Since its inception, the Fund has awarded $7.96 million in grants for collaborations between artists and organizations to create new art works.
Currently, the Creative Work Fund is a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by generous grants from ArtPlace, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The James Irvine Foundation.
In fall 2011, The Creative Work Fund invites letters of inquiry and applications for projects featuring media or performing artists. Project lead artists must live and their collaborating organizations must be based in the following 14 counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Stanislaus. Approximately $810,000 is available for 2011-2012 awards to media arts or performing arts projects. Grants in both categories will range from $10,000 to $40,000.
With support from the Creative Work Fund’s newest funder—ArtPlace—four of the 2012 grants will awarded be to projects that engage artists in imagining, honoring, and revitalizing urban, suburban, or small-town settings through high-quality arts projects.
See Apply for a Grant for explicit instructions.