Arts & Culture – Small Arts Grants- For Filmmakers

The Fleishhacker Foundation's Small Arts Grants program offers vital support to filmmakers in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties. This initiative is dedicated to assisting small and mid-sized arts organizations, providing unrestricted funding for film projects in the post-production phase. Eligible filmmakers must demonstrate prior funding and secure a fiscal sponsor or a nonprofit production company. Projects must have a budget under $750,000, with the next review cycle set for fall 2025.

The Fleishhacker Foundation’s Small Arts Grants program provides general, unrestricted support to small and mid-sized arts and culture organizations in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties that produce and present new work by professional Bay Area artists in the disciplines of dance, music, theater, visual arts, interdisciplinary arts, or film.
The program also provides post-production support for film projects directed by filmmakers who reside in these counties.
The Fleishhacker Foundation’s Small Arts Grants program supports film projects with budgets under $750,000 directed by filmmakers residing the San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties.
Film projects proposed for the fall 2025 review cycle must be scheduled to be in post-production between November 15, 2025 and October 15, 2026.

Eligibility

Applications are only accepted for the post-production phase of the project, when a full rough cut is complete and available. Filmmakers should have raised and spent at least 50% of their project budget before applying.Filmmakers are funded at any point in their careers.Filmmakers may only apply once for any given film project, and only if they have already secured a fiscal sponsor or are applying with a nonprofit production company.If applying with a fiscal sponsor, the mission of sponsoring organization must correlate with that of the film project. The sponsoring organization’s annual operating budget must be greater than $100,000, but there is no upper limit on its size.Filmmakers applying with their own nonprofit production company will also need to provide:An organizational budget for the nonprofit production company’s current fiscal year.A Board of Directors list, andThe percentage of Board members who made a financial contribution to the nonprofit production company within the past year.Filmmakers applying with a fiscal sponsor will need to provide:Contact information for the fiscal sponsor.A signed letter from the fiscal sponsor detailing the terms of the organization’s support and their agreement with the filmmaker.The total amount of the fiscal sponsor’s annual operating budget for its current fiscal year.

Ineligibility

The Foundation does not provide support for completed films.Grants are not awarded to film students. Individual artists are not eligible for grants through this program.Organizations may not apply to the Fleishhacker Foundation more than once each year, except for fiscal sponsors applying on behalf of multiple groups. If your organization applied for consideration during the Foundation’s spring 2025 review cycle, it is not eligible to apply again until the spring 2026 cycle, even if it did not receive a grant.