Arts in Community Grants

Musicians cannot apply for this one directly — a presenting organisation applies and books you. The money pays part of your fee to travel to another Southern state, play a public concert, and run an educational or community activity around it.

The applicant must be a 501(c)(3) arts organisation, a unit of local, county or state government, or a federally recognised tribal community, based in one of South Arts' nine states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina or Tennessee. It needs a Unique Entity Identifier, which can take a month to obtain. The artist must live in the region but not in the state where the project happens, and must have no professional or personal tie to the host.

The grant covers up to half the artist fee, capped at $10,000, and requires a dollar-for-dollar cash match. The minimum artist fee is $4,000 and the minimum request $2,000; indirect and other project costs are not covered. Every project needs both a public presentation — at least 60 minutes of performance for music — and a separate community engagement activity of at least 30 minutes, such as a workshop or masterclass. Leaving out the engagement activity makes the application ineligible.

Applications close on 1 September 2026 at 11:59pm ET for projects taking place during 2027, with decisions by 24 November. Reviewers give a quarter of the weight to the artist's excellence and three quarters to the project itself: relevance, audience and engagement plan, feasibility, outcomes, capacity, and contribution to the Southern arts ecosystem.