2024 ARTIST RESIDENCY OVERVIEW

Neighborhood Engagement Artist Residency (NEAR) grants support freelance teaching artists, social-activation artists, and social practice artists in community-based, participatory projects in self-selected non-arts venues within the City of Los Angeles. Competitive NEAR projects will gather, connect, and inspire participants and audiences who have little exposure to the proposed type of cultural opportunity. NEAR projects should be structured as eleven or more free or low-cost sessions culminating in one or more presentations that are open and promoted to the general public (proposing at least eleven workshops is the ideal duration for community engagement; however, applicants are encouraged to propose projects that can be scaled back to five workshops with one public presentation, as DCA staff will notify NEAR applicants next May about whether the City budget is able to provide NEAR grantees with either a $12,000 or a reduced $6,000 service contract)

Creative Optimism–Uplifting Promises (CO-UP) grants support collaborations between a local nonprofit social justice organization and a creative teaching artist (a freelance artist or an artist already working within a non-profit arts organization in the same community as the social justice organization). In some cases, a third partner, acting as a host site for the project may also be named. Eligible collaborative projects should be: 1) new or launched within the past four years, 2) free or low-cost for participants, and 3) culminate in at least one free public presentation that will be accessible to the general community. CO-UP residences should be structured as eleven sessions ending in one public presentation. CO-UP residencies are funded at $15,000 with $12,000 allocated for artist payment and $3,000 allocated for the social justice organization’s administrative expenses (meritorious CO-UP proposals that cannot be fully funded at $15,000, may be converted to a NEAR project consisting of five workshops and one culminating event with a budget of $6,000 — DCA staff will notify CO-UP applicants next May about whether the City budget able to provide grantees with either a $15,000 or a reduced $6,000 service contract)

Depending upon its budget for FY25-26, DCA aims to support approximately 15-22 residences at either $6,000 or $12,000 (ideally one for each of the city’s 15 Council districts) and an additional 10-15 CO-UP residencies at $15,000 each.

DCA defines a social justice organization as any social service nonprofit organization that has a board-approved and publicly printed/repeated mission statement that names a primary cause for equality (which can be: cultural, economic, environmental, immigration, healthcare, or housing-based); as well as a history of both advocacy to rebalance public policies, and community-based programs to address the same historic/current inequity. Religious, political and legal nonprofits are not eligible under this definition. Likewise, nonprofits that are statewide, national, or international in scale are not eligible at this time, because the pilot years of both the NEAR and CO-UP categories are aimed at local neighborhood and community impact. Arts-based nonprofits should apply directly to DCA’s Cultural Grant Program category each August and should not be the primary applicant of a CO-UP proposal (although arts organizations in LA County may partner by lending an employee with expertise to collaborate with an eligible social justice organization on a CO-UP project).

GOALS

• Supply creative arts resources to neighborhood host/partner organizations in each Council District by providing direct and intimate access to contemporary teaching-artists;
• Support projects that will consistently engage no less than 20 participants on some topic of thematic learning, and the group will culminate their workshops by staging a final presentation to be viewed by no less than 40 other individuals.
• Sponsor the implementation of educational-participatory 6 or 12-session residencies by a spectrum of the City’s most qualified teaching-artists; and,
• Provide host organizations offering little or no arts programming with opportunities to test or develop new services, and envision the integration of either an artist-employee, a new branch of programs into its core service, or a new collaboration with a local arts-organization.

ELIGIBILITY

• Applicants for a NEAR residency are individual artists (or collaborative duos/teams/ensembles under the leadership of a single applicant), whose community-based practices have been largely self-developed and remain primarily self-directed;
• Applicants for a CO-UP residency grant are social justice nonprofit organizations headquartered in Los Angeles County with an operating budget of at least $100,000 (as demonstrated by the applicant’s most recently filed IRS Form 990).
• All applicants (whether individual or nonprofit must either reside in or be headquartered in Los Angeles County and all proposed projects must take place and culminate within the City of Los Angeles;
• Teaching artists should demonstrate through their resume(s) at least 2 years of experience instructing participants in the proposed artistic discipline within projects at non-arts venues, public schools, parks, libraries, and/or similar community centers;
• NEAR applicants will propose a residency involving a relationship with one non-arts host organization, to take place at the same host organization’s location.