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2025 Arts Letter of Inquiry: Social Justice Content

OVERVIEW

LOI Application Open: May 20, 2024
STEP 1 - Screening Form Due: May 20 - June 10, 2024
STEP 2 - LOI Deadline: July 3, 2024
Notification of Finalists: Late 2024
Grant Start Date: Not before April 1 and in most cases on July 1, 2025

Frequently Asked Questions

Contact: artsloi@fordfoundation.org
Please do not contact the Creativity and Free Expression Director or Senior Program Officers directly with LOI inquiries.

This letter of inquiry (LOI) follows a refresh of Ford’s Creativity and Free Expression program strategy released last year. The refreshed strategy is guided by a vision of inclusive democracy that supports artists and storytellers to have an abundant and thriving presence in all communities, to animate histories, document realities, and help imagine a more just future.

The most significant focus of Ford’s strategy is to provide support to arts organizations that produce content, narratives, and expression to advance race, gender, and disability justice, lifting up diverse perspectives and reshaping what is valued. This LOI process seeks grantees for only this focus or prong of our strategy. We are interested in organizations that take an intersectional approach. In addition to ongoing work to advance art and stories created by, told by, and grounded in the cultures and aesthetics of Black, Indigenous, people of color and disabled people – and especially those who sit at the intersections of those identities – we are working more deeply to support the artistry of women, trans, intersex, two-spirit people, and drag artists.

We are seeking grantee partners with budgets of $500,000 to $5 million that lack philanthropic resources. To address geographic equity, we are seeking organizations with national resonance and impact and/or regional impact in the American South, Indian Country, and rural communities.

Competitive submissions will be considered for single or multi-year (up to three years) general or project support grants, ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 per year. Grants will begin in 2025, not before April 1 and in most cases on July 1, 2025. It is highly competitive in nature. We anticipate funding only 25-30 organizations/projects. Current grantees with questions about timing should email artsloi@fordfoundation.org.

This is an open LOI process. Please feel free to share the opportunity with other organizations that meet the criteria in this overview.

ELIGIBILITY & SELECTION PRIORITIES

ELIGIBILITY
This process is open only to organizations/projects who meet ALL of the following criteria:

Are based in the United States (including U.S. territories);
Have been determined by the IRS to be tax-exempt as a public charity under Section 501(c)(3), or are fiscally sponsored by a nonprofit organization;
Bring intersectional approaches that support two or more areas of Ford’s work: racial, gender, and disability justice; and
Offer disability-specific or disability-inclusive programming. We intend that all funded organizations and projects have deliberate activities/mechanisms in the design, implementation, and evaluation to promote and secure the rights and inclusion of disabled people.

This process is generally not open to organizations/projects who:

Have active grants with Ford that continue through 2025 or beyond;
Received support in both of our last two rounds of the LOI process. We ask grantee partners to take a break after two rounds so that we can make space for new groups in our funding portfolio;
Focus on advocacy, archiving, art therapy, arts education, educational initiatives, student or youth projects, scholarships, endowment funds, programs at colleges or universities, recreational or social activities, or social service projects. Instead, the program’s goals are generative and artistic; or
Are individual artists without a fiscal sponsor.

Current grantee partners whose grants with Ford are ending in 2024 or 2025 are eligible to apply. Any prior history of giving to your organization from Ford will not guarantee support. New organizations/projects who have not received funding from Ford are also eligible to apply.

SELECTION PRIORITIES
With limited exceptions, this process is open to organizations/projects who:

Have budgets between $500,000 to $5 million. Ford’s evaluation showed our giving is most impactful for groups in this range;
Have national resonance and impact and/or regional impact in these areas of interest to the foundation: the American South, Indian Country, and rural communities. Our priority is to drive resources to organizations in areas that lack philanthropic resources; and
Are art making and storytelling organizations, from theater companies and museums to new media efforts, with a priority for groups that are led by and center artists, storytellers, and culture bearers. We are seeking a diversity of organizational types and perspectives.

Priority in selection will be given to those organizations/projects whose LOIs most concretely and precisely demonstrate to our reviewers (a panel of artists and arts workers) their potential to advance racial, gender, and disability justice.

For general support grants, the case must be made that your whole organization aligns with our goals. In most instances, general support grants will be multi-year and determined on a sliding scale based on grantees’ total expense budgets and in relation to total funding available. Funding granted through this LOI process is one-time and does not signal a commitment by Ford beyond the grant period.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

We are using the online application portal OpenWater. The process has two stages, in order to limit the burden on applicants and reviewers. Interested applicants will first complete a short (15-minute) screening survey at any point up until June 10, 2024. Answers will be reviewed by Ford staff for alignment with funding goals within two business days and successful candidates will be invited to submit an LOI. You are encouraged to submit your screening form early to give yourself time to complete the next application.

For those invited to submit an LOI, complete LOIs (including supplementary materials) must be submitted online no later than July 3, 2024. We estimate this LOI will take four hours to complete, depending on the availability of requested materials.

LOI materials will be reviewed by a panel of artists and arts workers, who will recommend finalists to Ford staff for consideration. In late 2024, finalists will be notified about next steps, including a formal invitation to apply for a grant through Ford’s system. You will be able to copy and paste most of the content from your LOI. There will be a couple of additional questions, along with a request for Board and banking information.

If you have questions, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Applicants may also submit questions not already addressed on the FAQ page by email at artsloi@fordfoundation.org. Please do not contact the Creativity and Free Expression Director or Senior Program Officers directly with LOI inquiries.

We are committed to accessibility and the inclusion of disabled people in our programs. A full PDF version of the screening form and LOI are available for blind and low-vision applicants as well as applicants with slow internet access. If you need assistance accessing any part of this application, please contact artsloi@fordfoundation.org.

DEADLINES

HOW TO BEGIN

If you received an invitation directly from Ford, we have started an application on your behalf for you to finish and submit. To get started:

We have started an account on your behalf, but you will need to reset your password on the first login attempt
Use the "lost password?" link to start the password reset process
Once you have reset your password, log in
Once logged in, you should see the menu on the left-hand side change to include "My Applications" > "Incomplete (1)"
Click on "Incomplete" to access your application
Click "Edit" to complete the screening form as soon as possible and no later than June 10, 2024

To preview all screening form questions in advance and work on your draft, click here.

If you received an invitation from someone else:

At the bottom of this page, click "Start Application"
Follow the prompts to create your account
Upon successful account creation, you will be directed to the Screening Form
Submit your application as soon as possible and no later than June 10, 2024

ABOUT US

Visit FordFoundation.org to learn more about Ford's Creativity and Free Expression program area. Please note that this grant opportunity funds the arts and culture component of the CFE program area, not the JustFilms initiative or journalism component of CFE.

Thank you for all you do to advance the arts and social justice and all best wishes.