Pew Center for Arts & Heritage: Creative Project Grants

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage offers Creative Project Grants to support distinctive and impactful projects by cultural organizations in the Philadelphia region. These grants target performances, exhibitions, and public interpretations that engage diverse audiences. Eligible applicants must be nonprofit organizations with a minimum annual budget of $150,000, located in the five-county area of Philadelphia. Individual artists are not eligible, and projects should demonstrate artistic excellence and community engagement.

NOTE: Inquiry Form must be completed, and required financial materials must be uploaded to the Center's application portal by Mar 16, 2026. By Mar 27, 2026, new applicants (or organizations that have not applied since 2020) and fiscally sponsored applicants and their sponsors must meet with Center staff.
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (the Center) makes panel-adjudicated grants in support of the Philadelphia region’s cultural organizations and artists. The Center is dedicated to fostering a thriving cultural ecology.
The projects we support grow directly out of mission and demonstrate excellence, care, and conceptual rigor. Funded projects reflect our grantees’ commitment to multiple perspectives, inclusive practices, and meaningful engagement with multicultural audiences.
Creative Project Grants support artistically and programmatically excellent, distinctive, and substantive performances, exhibitions, and interpretation projects designed for diverse publics. The Center has two creative project funding areas: Performance and Exhibitions & Public Interpretation. These two areas support projects that are multi- or interdisciplinary, as well as those based in a specific discipline.

Eligibility

2026 Creative Project Grants will be open to both independent and fiscally sponsored organizations that meet the following threshold eligibility criteria.All applicants, including those serving as a fiscal sponsor, must be organizations that have a 501(c)(3) designation and be located in the five-county Philadelphia region of Pennsylvania (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia county). Individual artists are not eligible for Creative Project grants.Have minimum annual expenses of $150,000.Primarily serve public audiences. (The Center does not fund K–12 educational programming, curricula at any academic level, projects primarily rooted in education, or projects where the primary audiences are students and educators.)Have adequate, paid, professional, artistic/curatorial and managerial staff to realize the project.Have a minimum of two years of experience presenting professional public programs in the areas encompassed by the Creative Project program areas (i.e., arts and public history). (Fiscal sponsors must have a demonstrable record of arts and culture sponsorship. Fiscally sponsored organizations must offer year-round programming. The Center does not fund organizations that primarily present one-time annual programs, events, or festivals.)Provide three years of financial audits/reviews to determine financial eligibility for funding. (Fiscal sponsors must submit their own financial audits, as well as records to confirm the minimum annual expenses of the sponsee. Fiscal sponsors and their sponsees must have an established agreement in place at the time that the Letter of Intent to Apply (LOI) is submitted.)Not have an open grant in the project funding area from which they seek funding in the 2026 cycle.Not be managed by current employees of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The Pew Charitable Trusts, or the Barnes Foundation; members of such employees’ households; or people closely related to such employees through blood, marriage, or domestic partnership.

Ineligibility

Individual artists are not eligible for Creative Project grants.