Artists and arts organizations, welcome to NYSCA season! What is NYSCA, why does it have a season, why do artists and arts organizations care about it, and what’s it doing on the Fractured Atlas blog? We’ll cover it all below.
NYSCA is the New York State Council on the Arts. It is “dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York’s citizens.” They do this by distributing grant funding to individual artists and arts organizations in the state.
Every year, NYSCA accepts applications for funding during a relatively short window. This window of time is affectionately known at Fractured Atlas as NYSCA season. Frankly, it’s a whirlwind, and it’s happening right now!
They accept applications in different rounds. The round that is most applicable to individual artists and arts organizations is Round 3: Organizational and Individual Artist Recovery. The NYSCA application portal opened on July 19 for individual artists and artist organizations and will close on September 1.
Each year NYSCA changes its protocol, funding priorities, and timeline slightly. Once we find out what their requirements are and what the deadlines look like for New York artists, we (and anyone looking to receive that funding) are fully in NYSCA season.
Artists and arts organizations living and working in the state of New York can apply for NYSCA funding. Check out their guidelines for individual artists and for organizations.
Applicants must either be registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit or apply for NYSCA funding with a fiscal sponsor. All individual artist applications must be submitted by a fiscal sponsor. Check out what 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and fiscal sponsorship mean for artists if you’re not sure.
Applicants, whether individual or organization, must apply for activities that will take place between January 1 and December 31, 2022.
Individual artist applicants cannot apply for NYSCA funding for a project if that project has already received funding through NYSCA. However, you can apply for a different project.
Unfortunately, any project that applied for the FY21 funding cycle in the Individual Artists program is ineligible to apply for the Artist program for this upcoming year, whether or not they received a funding award.
Individual grants are for $10,000 and organizational grants will be made between $10,000 - $49,500.
We absolutely recommend that you check out NYSCA’s webinars to learn more. You can also get in touch with the staff point person for the discipline that most closely aligns with your work to suss out whether your program or organization is eligible.
If you’ve applied to NYSA before, you’ll notice some changes this year.
The first change is that you don’t need to choose an application based on your discipline. Instead, you choose which application you’ll submit based on whether your project is driven by an individual artist or an organization.
There are more creative disciplines that are being supported by NYSCA this year! Individual artists can now apply if they have projects that are part of folk and traditional alerts, literature, visual arts, or an interdisciplinary practice. Organizations that are fiscally sponsored can now apply in film/media art and technology, multi-arts, and visual arts.
Repeat applicants will notice that this year’s application takes fewer steps. There is no Sponsored Request Form (SRF) and no Grants Gateway component. There is only one form that you need to complete and submit alongside your supplemental documents. You will not need to submit your proof of residency to NYSCA directly if you are submitting your application through us at Fractured Atlas. Submit that information to us and we will confirm it.
As a note, if you applied in the Special Arts Service program in the past few years, you will most likely fit best under the Organization program.
Because Fractured Atlas is a fiscal sponsor to individuals and organizations whose work falls within the purview or our larger mission, we are able to serve as fiscal sponsor for artists as they apply for NYSCA funding.
For fiscally sponsored projects that are looking to apply for NYSCA with us as a fiscal sponsor, we will submit the actual application. We just need the project to supply us with information that needs to be included.
Fractured Atlas takes care of the compliance issues including the Grants Gateway and registering in the NYSCA application system.
If you are interested in applying for NYSCA using Fractured Atlas as your fiscal sponsor, congrats and we’re happy to work with you!
Artists and organizations must be approved for our fiscal sponsorship program and have met our $1,000 grant-eligibility requirement in order to apply for NYSCA with us. The process of applying for fiscal sponsorship can take up to two weeks and meeting the $1,000 threshold could take longer. In some cases, it is possible to waive this requirement. Please submit your application for fiscal sponsorship by August 4 if you aren’t already fiscally sponsored by us. If you are applying for fiscal sponsorship, take a look at our best practices for completing our application.
If you want to apply for NYSCA with us, please email support@fracturedatlas.org to let us know by Friday, August 13. Application materials need to be submitted to us by Wednesday, August 18 so that we can review them and submit them before the deadline of September 1.
Once you let us know that you want to apply for NYSCA, we will create a Google Drive folder for you or your organization. This will include the application form to be filled out. You will need to fill out the application form, plus upload supplementary materials to this Google Drive folder by August 18. Be sure to let us know when your materials are all in, as we won’t be able to actively check every folder to see what has or has not been submitted.
We are only able to accommodate one application per fiscally-sponsored project.
Please keep in mind that this is a multi-step process and we work with many artists and organizations to support them in their NSYCA applications. Don’t wait until the last minute to complete it! We charge a $75 rush fee for reviews in under five business days and $250 for next-day turnaround reviews. Our Programs team is exceptional, if I may hype up my very deserving colleagues. But they are a small team and they handle NYSCA applications on top of the other responsibilities they have to support our members across the country.
Ready for the next steps? Here’s your order of operations:
Happy NYSCA season!