Creative Unrestricted

Creative Unrestricted is built around a straightforward idea: hand money to Manhattan performing artists and small arts organisations with no strings on how they spend it, so it can go toward rent, admin, equipment, or anything else that keeps the work sustainable, rather than toward a single named project. It's open to Manhattan-based individual artists, artist collectives, and small-to-mid-sized organisations with annual budgets under $250,000, working in dance, theater, music, or multidisciplinary performance across any cultural tradition — it excludes anyone working purely in visual, media, or literary art. The program expects applicants to already have a sustained body of work behind them rather than being brand new to the field. Awards run $20,000 per recipient, unrestricted, paid over two years across two installments, with 36 awards given — figures the funder's own page for this specific program doesn't restate, so it's worth confirming current numbers before applying. The application runs through Submittable and centers on work samples: well-documented recordings of past work are expected (video or audio is strongly encouraged for performing artists, with stills or scripts accepted when a recording genuinely isn't possible), and heavily edited promotional reels aren't accepted. More than 50 jurors — artists, cultural workers, and arts professionals connected to Manhattan's creative communities — review eligible, complete applications and judge them on how well they meet the program's stated criteria, though the organisation doesn't publish what that criteria actually is, and having received funding before neither helps nor hurts a new application.