The Foundation for Contemporary Arts provides grants in five categories: dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry, and the visual arts. Grants are awarded annually to outstanding or unusually promising artists and arts organizations which create, present, or support work of an imaginative, contemporary nature and need this kind of assistance. Since 1963, hundreds of grants have been made to individuals, groups and organizations. This support has provided opportunities for artistic exploration and development, encouraging recipients to engage in a variety of projects of their own choosing.
In the early 1990s, the FCA chose to provide more significant sums to artists for the realization of ongoing work by awarding fewer, more substantial grants to individuals and groups by a nomination process only.
Announcements of grants to individuals are made each winter. Grants to organizations are made in the early fall.
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts distributed a total of $378,000 in grants in 2007. Grants to Individuals of $25,000 each were awarded to ten artists, a total of $250,000. The directors were joined in the grant selection process by Dance Theater Workshop Artistic Director Carla Peterson, theater artist Fiona Templeton, and musician Margaret Leng Tan. Additionally, $30,600 was disbursed for 29 Emergency Grants, $57,500 was distributed to 52 presenting and service organizations through Grants to Organizations and $40,000 was disbursed in Contemporary Visual Arts Scholarships.
