Create Grants
Create Grants
Funding for arts and/or cultural projects open to the public in Santa Cruz County, up to $3,000. Open to Santa Cruz County artists, arts organizations, and non-arts organizations working in collaboration with artists.
Applications will open February 12 - March 19, 2025. The information below is from last year and will be updated in January 2025.
Sign up for our Grants newsletter at the bottom of this page to get notified about all of our grant offerings.
Please read the guidelines before beginning your application. Guidelines include important information about eligibility and review criteria.
The Create Grant application is an online application. Download this Microsoft Word document to view the list of application questions in advance.
Key Dates
Location TBD. Registration encouraged. The orientation will begin with a presentation by Tamara Liu, Grants Program Manager, covering everything you need to know about Create & Develop grants. There will be time for questions after the presentation. Event information will be emailed ahead of the event to those who register.
Begin working on your application in the grants portal.
Grants PortalRegistration encouraged. The orientation will begin with a presentation by Tamara Liu, Grants Program Manager, covering everything you need to know about Create & Develop grants. There will be time for questions after the presentation. Zoom information will be emailed ahead of the event to those who register.
Register HereNo registration, but please email grantsprogram@artscouncilsc.org if you prefer Spanish so we can have a Spanish-speaking staff member present.
Office hours are informal times when you can get grant application support from Arts Council staff. You can drop in during any of the scheduled times, and since there isn’t a presentation, you don’t have to be there at the beginning or stay til the end. If lots of folks show up at once, we’ll use a learning circle approach, with each person sharing questions or ideas. If you’re the only one, you will get direct one-on-one support! No questions or situations are too simple or too complicated. Hope to see you there!
Click below to join the Zoom meeting (Meeting ID: 82141625968 Passcode: g5z82Muf).
Join the Zoom MeetingDrop-in office hours in Santa Cruz at the Arts Council office, 1070 River Street, Santa Cruz CA 95060.
Office hours are informal times when you can get grant application support from Arts Council staff. Siince there isn’t a presentation, you don’t have to be there at the beginning of the hour or stay til the end. If lots of folks show up at once, we’ll use a learning circle approach, with each person sharing questions or ideas. If you’re the only one, you will get direct one-on-one support! No questions or situations are too simple or too complicated. Hope to see you there!
Drop-in office hours at Arte del Corazón, 80 Airport Blvd Ste 206, Freedom CA 95019. No registration.
Office hours are informal times when you can get grant application support from Arts Council staff. Siince there isn’t a presentation, you don’t have to be there at the beginning of the hour or stay til the end. If lots of folks show up at once, we’ll use a learning circle approach, with each person sharing questions or ideas. If you’re the only one, you will get direct one-on-one support! No questions or situations are too simple or too complicated. Hope to see you there!
Please plan to submit your application well before 5pm! Late applications due to technical difficulties or any other reason are not accepted. The grants portal is often slower to load as the deadline approaches.
Look for an email on this date, sent to the email you used to log into the grants portal. The email will be sent by administrator@grantinterface.com, so please make sure to add this address to your safe sender list.
Grant payments will be sent once you’ve signed your grant agreement.
When all funded activities/expenses must take place.
Create Grant FAQs
We are using a new scoring rubric. Please see the Review Criteria section of the guidelines for more information.
- In addition to the three review criteria, further consideration will be given to: applicants living in neighborhoods most disproportionately impacted by inequities as indicated by the California Healthy Places Index (HPI). HPI is determined by mapping 23 key drivers of health outcomes — like education, job opportunities, and clean air and water. Click here for more information on HPI.
- Universities and colleges are ineligible for Arts Council grants, with the exception of providing fiscal sponsorship for one arts program only for a Create or Support grant application.
- Applicants may only apply for one grant per cycle (Create or Develop, not both).
- Organizations are no longer required to match Create grants with other funding.
The First-Time Applicant Pool is available only to applicants who have never submitted a grant application to the Arts Council. If you have applied before, regardless of whether you were awarded the grant or not, you are no longer a first-time applicant.
First, read the guidelines. We also highly recommend attending the Zoom grants orientation. Once you've done that, if you're still unsure, please feel free to reach out and ask! Email our team at grantsprogram@artscouncilsc.org.
If you are planning to have an audience and / or participants, then you most likely are eligible to apply for a Create grant, which has a higher maximum award. If you're not planning to share your work publicly as part of the grant, then a Develop grant may be a better fit. However, certain activities can sometimes fit either type of grant. First, read the guidelines. We also highly recommend attending the Zoom grants orientation. Once you've done that, if you're still unsure, please feel free to reach out and ask! Email our team at grantsprogram@artscouncilsc.org.
We like to support a variety of different projects each cycle! If your idea meets the eligibility and criteria listed in the guidelines, we'd love to read your application. View our list of current grantees for some examples of recently funded Create grants (note that all types of grants are included on this webpage).
Current GranteesYes! Download this document to see a few examples of responses that have received high scores in recent grant cycles.
DownloadGeneral FAQs are available at the bottom of our Apply for a Grant webpage.