New Jersey State Council on the Arts

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Grant Opportunities for Artists

To stay informed about future grant opportunities, be sure to sign up for the Council’s newsletter. If you have questions about these programs, please contact Council staff.

The nearly 50,000 professional artists who call New Jersey home form the very heart of the cultural community of this state. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when one considers the thousands more for whom artistic creation, performance and interpretation are a vocational, cultural, religious or recreational interest of the highest personal and community priority. Artists are the creative capital of our communities and this is why it is the Arts Council's goal to promote them, encourage them, assist them to achieve their highest ambitions and help a wider public understand and appreciate all that artists do to make New Jersey a better place.

The Council supports artists in several important ways, through a wide array of programs and services that recognizes, encourages and showcases their talents. In turn, such recognition brings their work to the attention of organizations and communities everywhere to embrace and support this remarkable "creative capital" that helps make New Jersey great.

Individual Artist Fellowship Awards

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships are awarded to practicing New Jersey artists through an anonymous, competitive application process to help them pursue their artistic goals.The application submission, review, and post-award process for the Individual Artist Fellowships is administered by Mid Atlantic Arts in partnership with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

The categories for the 2025 NJ Individual Artist Fellowship were:

Choreography
Crafts
Music Composition
Photography
Playwriting/Screenwriting
Poetry
Sculpture

Applications are now closed. For more information, be sure to sign up for the Council’s newsletter.

Individual Artist Fellowship rules, instructions and application.

This Year's Council Grantees

Folk & Traditional Arts Project Grants

The Folk & Traditional Arts Project (FTAP) grant program provides emerging to mid-career folk and traditional artists access to opportunities that significantly advance skills in their art form. For this grant opportunity, emerging to mid-career artists are individuals with more than five years of experience in their art forms.

Applicants may request up to $10,000 to cover the costs of a structured learning opportunity in their art form. Proposed projects must demonstrate measurable outcomes that the applicant intends to achieve, which furthers their work in their folk and traditional art form.

The proposed project outcome must support artmaking skills in folk/traditional art forms that are passed on between two or more artists in an ongoing, structured relationship (i.e. mentor/apprentice, small group learning, and/or directed research).

Applications are now closed. For more information, be sure to sign up for the Council’s newsletter.

NJ Heritage Fellowship

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts will award up to ten New Jersey Heritage Fellowships to exemplary folk and traditional artists. These Fellowships, which come with an award of $20,000 each, recognize lifetime achievement, artistic excellence, and contributions to our state's living traditional arts heritage.

Applications are now closed. For more information, be sure to sign up for the Council’s newsletter.

New Jersey Heritage Fellowship Nomination Form
NJ Heritage Fellowship Rules and Instructions (English)
NJ Heritage Fellowship Rules and Instructions (Spanish)

Clement A. Price Arts Management Intern Program

Please note: The Price Arts Management Intern program is not accepting applications at this time. For updates on when the program will reopen applications, please subscribe to the Council’s Opportunities for the Field Newsletter.

This program is named in honor of Dr. Clement Alexander Price (1945-2014), former Council Chair, beloved friend of the arts community and an unparalleled force of knowledge, humanitarianism and leadership.

Administered as a cosponsored program, the objectives of the program are as follows:

to provide practical experience to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as other applicants who intend to pursue careers in arts-related professions;
to provide an opportunity to learn about and contribute to State Arts Council operations, grants and programs, communications and artist services;
to provide New Jersey arts organizations with a potential pool of promising future arts administrators

For more information please contact Samantha Clarke at 609-984-7019 or Samantha.Clarke@sos.nj.gov