Grants and Opportunities (May 2023)

A list of federal, state, and other arts and culture grants/opportunities. Questions regarding a particular opportunity should be directed to the organization listed with the opportunity. Inclusion here should not be interpreted as an endorsement.

Calls for Artists in Hawaiʻi

Call for Entry (CAFE)

The Call for Entry (CAFE) website can be searched by state (choose the “sort by” menu on the left side of the screen). Search the Café website: Artist.CallForEntry.org.

• Downtown Art Center, “Artists of Hawaiʻi” call for artists opens on CAFE August 14, 2023. For more information, please visit the DAC website: DowntownArtHI.org/artistsofhawaii.
• “MidSummer Art Celebration” 6^th Annual All Media Juried Exhibit, Hawaiʻi Island Art Alliance (HIAA). Open to all Hawaiʻi based 2D and 3D artists in all mediums and styles. Entries due by May 12, 2023. For more information, please visit the call for artists on CallForEntry.org: artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=11165.

Calls for Artists

• Hawaiʻi Craftsmen Annual Statewide Exhibition 2023 prospectus now available. Important dates: online registration August 1 – 31, exhibit open September 30 – October 28 at the Downtown Art Center (Honolulu), opening reception Saturday September 30, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. For more information, please visit the Hawaiʻi Craftsmen website: HawaiiCraftsmen.org.
• Hawaiʻi Handweavers’ Hui and The Glass Fusion Collective “Surrounded by Water” juried art exhibition, Downtown Art Center (Honolulu), August 2-18, 2023. Online registration begins July 1, 2023. For more information, please contact the Hawaiʻi Handweavers Hui at [email protected] or visit their website at HawaiiHandweavers.org.
• Hawai’i Island Arts Alliance and Wailoa Center “Abstract Only! 2023” entries due July 14, 2023. Open to all US National and Hawaii State residents. Open to 2D and 3D abstract artworks in all mediums. For more information, please visit the Wailoa Center website: WailoaCenter.com/artist-opportunities.
• Hui Noʻeau Visual Arts Center “Beneath the Surface: Marine Life of Hawaii” Call to Artists, online entry May 9-16. A community art exhibition celebrating marine biodiversity. Artwork must feature an existing ocean species found in or near Hawaiian waters. For more information, please visit the Hui Noʻeau website: HuiNoeau.com/exhibitions/2023/5/beneath-the-surface-marine-life-of-hawaii.
• Kauaʻi Society of Artists and Surfrider Foundation Kauaʻi “Washed Up” marine debris art exhibit, entries accepted Saturday May 27. Details to come from the Kauaʻi Society of Artists: KauaiSocietyOfArtists.org.
• Loʻi Gallery at American Savings Bank (downtown Honolulu) is taking applications for exhibits. Learn more and apply on their website: asbhawaii.com/loigallery.

Job Opportunities

• Bishop Museum job opportunities currently include Informatics Digital Humanities Specialist and Public Programs and Community Engagement Specialist (PPCE Specialist). For more information, please visit the Bishop Museum website: BishopMuseum.org/careers.
• Honolulu Museum of Art job opportunities currently include Director of Collections, Audio-Visual Technician, and Grants Manager. Learn more on the Honolulu Museum of Art website: HonoluluMuseum.org/employment.
• Iolani Palace job opportunites currently include Director of Finance, Membership Program Manager, Museum Store Associate, Guest Services Associate, and Palace Guard. Learn more on the Iolani Palace website: IolaniPalace.org/job-opportunities.

Volunteer Opportunities

• Bishop Museum Volunteer Opportunities: current volunteer opportunities include exhibit greeters, press sales and marketing assistant, and wayfinders. For more information, please visit the Bishop Museum website: BishopMuseum.org/volunteer.
• Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) Volunteer Program: HoMA offers a variety of volunteer roles, such as engagement with the public around current exhibitions, facilitating art activities with families and children at Family Sunday, guiding tours through museum galleries and more. For more information, please visit the HoMA website: HonoluluMuseum.org/volunteer-program.
• Iolani Palace Volunteer positions currently include greeters, stewards, and palace shop kōkua. For more information, please visit the Iolani Palace website: IolaniPalace.org/contact/volunteer.
• Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA) Seeks Grant Review Panelist Volunteers with a professional background in culture and the humanities to join our grant review panelist roster. Panelists must be Hawaiʻi residents with experience in Heritage & Preservation, Community Arts, Arts Education, and Presentation & Performing Arts. We encourage those with a background in Arts and Healing, Community Development related to arts and culture, cultural practitioners of all disciplines, and new and emerging members of the arts and culture community to apply. Contact the SFCA grants program at [email protected].

Grants and Resources

• City and County of Honolulu, Honolulu Complete Streets Program Community Resources
  • Parklets: A parklet is a public space created in an on-street parking space that may feature benches, tables, chairs, planters and landscaping, shade, and bicycle parking. Parklets are temporary installations that can be in place for a period ranging from several hours to several years. While parklets are sponsored by private partners, all amenities must remain free and open for any member of the public to use. Advertising, table service, and other commercial activities are not permitted. 
  • Quick-build projects are short-term improvements to streets utilizing inexpensive materials to achieve community goals. Involving community members and even local artists, quick-build projects leverage relationships within communities to creatively and collaboratively transform the built environment to improve road safety and enhance neighborhood aesthetics. The collaborative nature of quick-build projects fosters opportunities to strengthen community cohesion and solidify a sense of community identity. The City supports several quick-build project types on City roadways and sidewalks, including decorative curb extensions and painted traffic signal boxes.
  • Learn more on the City and County of Honolulu website: honolulu.gov/completestreets/community-resources.html.
• City and County of Honolulu Office of Economic Recovery Oʻahu Business Recovery Grants to Reopen May 15. Businesses that applied in the first round and were declined are encouraged to apply again if they meet the expanded eligibility critera. How to Apply webinar Thursday May 4, 2:00 p.m., on the OER Facebook page. No Facebook account is needed to watch and the webinar will be For more information, please visit the Revitalize Oʻahu website: RevitalizeOahu.org/oahubizgrant.
• Hawai’i Community Foundation and Hawai’i Tourism Authority Kūkulu Ola and and Aloha ʻĀina Awards for nonprofit organizations and government entities. Applications due May 24, 2023. For more information, please visit the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation website: HawaiiCommunityFoundation.org/strengthening/hta.
  • The Kūkulu Ola funds support programs that help honor and preserve the Hawaiian culture; demonstrate collaborative efforts with a high degree of community support and involvement; strive to nurture the culture by creating unique experiences and activies that are respectful and accurate; and support cultural practitioners, craftsmen, musicians, and other artists within the sector.
  • The Aloha ʻĀina funding opportunity seeks to fund community-based projects and programs that work to respect, enhance, and perpetuate Hawaiʻi’s natural resources. The Aloha ʻĀina program funds support programs that improve value-added amenities at natural resource sites; explore innovative means to repair, maintain and improve Hawaiʻi’s natural resources; increases collaboration among government agencies, the visitor industry, and the community; and raise awareness of commercial operators, information providers, and others regarding the responsible use of natural resources.
• Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities Grant Applications Open through May 24: Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities (HI Humanities) awards grants to projects that best supports its mission: To connect people with ideas that broaden perspectives, enrich lives and strengthen communities. Our grants humanities programs encourage the movement of knowledge beyond academic settings and support public involvement in conversations important to our communities today and looking into our possible futures. Letters of inquiry are due May 3, 2023. Applications are due May 10, 2023. Learn more on the HI Humanities website: https://hihumanities.org/what-we-do/our-grants-program.
• The Hub “Handpicked in Paraiso” AAPI Marketplace call for vendors and performers: This marketplace will be held in downtown Honolulu on Saturday, May 13th in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month.
  • Apply to be a vendor: AAPI Marketplace Vendor application form
  • Apply to be a performer: AAPI Marketplace Performer application form

Federal Grants and Programs

The Grants.gov website can be searched by eligibility, category, and more. Below are a few currently open grants related to arts and culture.

• Department of State, U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa Public Diplomacy Grants Program PDS Samoa invites Statements of Interest (SOI) for projects that seek to do at least one of the following: strengthen U.S.-Samoa cooperation and coordination on global issues of shared interest (e.g. combatting climate change); promote the mutual benefits of tech and innovation; and promote stronger connections between the people of the United States and Samoa. Eligible applicants include individuals and nonprofits. Closing date for applications: August 1, 2023. For more information and to apply, please visit the Grants.gov website: grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=344349.
• Library of Congress: Be a Virtual Volunteer: help transcribe Library of Congress documents online. Volunteers create and review transcriptions to improve search, access, and discovery of these pages from history. https://crowd.loc.gov/
• National Archives and Records Administration (NHPRC) NHPRC-Mellon Planning Grants for Collaborative Digital Editions. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), with funding provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks proposals for its planning grant program for Collaborative Digital Editions in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American History and Ethnic Studies. Overarching goal to broaden participation in the production and publication of historical and scholarly digital editions. Application closing date June 7, 2023. Learn more on the NHPRC website: archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/digitaleditions.
• NHPRC Publishing Historical Records in Collaborative Digital Editions. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks proposals to publish online editions of historical records. All types of historical records are eligible, including documents, photographs, born-digital records, and analog audio. Projects may focus on broad historical movements in U.S. history, including any aspect of African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American history, such as law (including the social and cultural history of the law), politics, social reform, business, military, the arts, and other aspects of the national experience. Projects that center the voices and document the history of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color are especially welcome. Application closing date November 2, 2023. For more information please visit the National Archives website: archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/editions.html.
• National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is the only arts funder in the United States—public or private—that provides access to the arts in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. jurisdictions. Each year, the NEA awards thousands of grants to provide everyone in the United States with diverse opportunities for arts participation. Learn more about how to apply, the process, and more on the NEA website: arts.gov/grants.
  • National Endowment for the Arts: nominate a National Heritage Fellow (folk and traditional arts) by May 30. National Heritage Fellowship nominees must be worthy of national recognition and have a record of continuing artistic accomplishment. They must be actively participating in their art form, either as practitioners, mentors, or as community scholars. Successful nominations demonstrate significant contributions to living folk and traditional arts, source communities, and/or the transmission of traditional knowledge to future generations. Learn more and make a nomination on the NEA website: arts.gov/honors/heritage/make-a-national-heritage-fellowship-nomination.
  • Our Town Grant applications due August 2023. Our Town is the NEA’s creative placemaking grants program. Through project-based funding, the program supports activities that integrate arts, culture, and design into local efforts that strengthen communities. Our Town projects advance local economic, physical, or social outcomes in communities, ultimately laying the groundwork for systems change and centering equity. These projects require a partnership between a local government entity and nonprofit organization, one of which must be a cultural organization; and should engage in partnership with other sectors. Applications will be due in August 2023. Exact dates and information sessions will be posted later this spring. Learn more about the Our Town grant program on the NEA website: arts.gov/grants/our-town. In fiscal year 2022, Our Town grant awardees included: Hawaiʻi County Department of Parks and Recreation (partnered with the East Hawaiʻi Cultural Center) to support community planning and the co-creation of artwork using plastics diverted from local beaches and landfills on Hawaiʻi Island; Kokua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services (partnered with Honolulu Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts) to support a community-generated public art installation and exhibition in Hoʻoulu ʻAina, a 100-acre nature preserve in Kalihi; Hawaiʻi Arts Alliance (with support from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generative Economic Recover (TIGER) grant), to support an arts festival to celebrate a new cultural facility in Lihue (island of Kauaʻi); and 500 Sails (partnered with the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture), to support youth dance workshops and performances celebrating the traditional maritime heritage of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
  • Special Topics Webinar: Grants for Arts and Digital Technology Projects for organizations, May 16, 2023. Learn more about the new ‘area of interest’ regarding digital and emergent technology featured in the Grants for Arts Projects category, as part of the NEA’s commitment to support digital capacity-building for organizations, artists, and audiences in its FY2022-2026 Strategic Plan. NEA staff will provide examples of eligible project activities, tips for a competitive application, and provide time to address any additional questions from webinar participants. Tuesday, May 16, 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Hawaiʻi Standard Time. For more information and to register, please go to the NEA website: arts.gov/news/events/special-topics-webinar-grants-arts-projects-digital-technology-projects.
  • Grants for Arts Projects for organizations, applications due July 6, 2023. Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) is the NEA’s largest grant program for organizations, providing expansive funding opportunities for communities across the nation in a wide range of artistic disciplines, including media arts. Information sessions: GAP and Digital Technology Projects Webinar: Tuesday, May 16, 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Hawaiʻi Standard Time; GAP Media Arts Office Hours: Tuesday, June 27, 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Hawaiʻi Standard Time and Wednesday, July 12, 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Hawaiʻi Standard Time. For more information, please visit the NEA website GAP page: arts.gov/grants/grants-for-arts-projects/program-description.
  • Volunteer to be a National Endowment for the Arts Panelist. Arts Endowment panelists play a central role in reviewing applications for funding. The NEA relies on panels composed of individuals who represent a broad range of artistic and cultural viewpoints, as well as wide geographic and ethnic diversity, to provide advice about the artistic excellence and artistic merit of proposals in a variety of funding categories. Panels are composed of both arts professionals and knowledgeable laypersons. Most panelists are arts professionals who are qualified by their activities, training, skills, and/or experience in one or more art forms. Every panel also includes a layperson – someone knowledgeable about the arts but not engaged in the arts as a profession either full- or part-time. Learn more on the NEA website: arts.gov/form/volunteer-to-be-a-national-endowment-for-the-arts-panelist
• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) NEH Public Scholars Grant. Eligible applicants: individuals. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Research Programs is accepting applications for the Public Scholars program. The program offers grants to individual authors for research, writing, travel, and other activities leading to the creation and publication of well-researched nonfiction books in the humanities written for the broad public. It encourages non-academic writers to deepen their engagement with the humanities by strengthening the research underlying their books, and it encourages academic writers in the humanities to communicate the significance of their research to the broadest possible range of readers. The program continues to offer special encouragement to independent writers, researcher, and scholars and others who have no long-term affiliation with an academic institution. Deadline: November 29, 2023. For additional information and to apply, please visit the NEH website: neh.gov/grants/research/public-scholar-program.
• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program. This program supports projects that provide an essential underpinning for scholarship, education, and public engagement in the humanities. It strengthens efforts to extend the reach of humanities collections and make their intellectual content widely accessible. Awards also support the creation of reference resources that facilitate the use of cultural materials, from works that provide basic information quickly to tools that synthesize and codify knowledge of a subject for in-depth investigation. Organization applications due July 18, 2023. For more information, please visit the NEH website: neh.gov/grants/preservation/humanities-collections-and-reference-resources.
• National Park Service 2023 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NGRPA) Consultation/Documentation Grants and FY2023 NAGPRA Repatriation Grants supports efforts determining the geographical origin, cultural affiliation, and other basic facts surrounding the acquisition of Native Hawaiian cultural items. Consultation and documentation projects should lead to determining control, treatment, repatriation, and disposition of NAGPRA cultural items. Applications due May 12, 2023. For additional information and to apply, please visit the Grants.gov website: grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=344580.
• Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Rural, Insular & Native Achievement Programs: Native Hawaiian Education (NHE) Program to support innovative projects that recognize and address the unique educational needs of Native Hawaiians. Closing date for applications: May 15, 2023. For more information, please go to Grants.gov: grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=346724.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (U.S. FWS) U.S. FWS Youth Engagement, Education, and Employment Grant. Eligible applicants include nonprofits that reach or represent potentially underserved communities. Closing date for applications: September 10, 2023. For more information and to apply, please visit the Grants.gov website: grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=344392.
• U.S. FWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. This is a voluntary, incentive-based program that provides direct technical assistance and financial assistance in the form of cooperative and grant agreements to private landowners to restore and conserve fish and wildlife habitat for the benefit of federal trust resources. Eligible applicants include individuals, for-profit organizations, and nonprofits. Private lands include Hawaiian homeland properties. Closing date for applications: September 30, 2023. For more information and to apply, please visit the Grants.gov website: grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=343732.
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) 2023 Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program for independent inventors, entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and intellectual property (IP) professionals to learn about available resources. Virtual event held May 31, 9:00 – 10:15 a.m. Hawaiʻi Standard Time. For more information and to reserve a free ticket, please go to the USPTO website: uspto.gov/about-us/events/aanhpi-innovation-and-entrepreneurship-event-series.

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This post was last updated on May 18, 2023.