SALT LAKE CITY - The Salt Lake Arts Council is excited to announce two new grant programs for individual emerging and professional artists, as well as, nonprofit organizations in Salt Lake City. Approximately $50,000 will be made available to advance artists careers, stimulate the creative economy, and promote racial equity. In collaboration with Mayor Erin Mendenhall, and Salt Lake City’s equity initiatives, these funds are designated to support a contemporary arts based workforce, further representation of communities through racial equity and inclusion, and to promote belonging and representation.

"Diverse perspectives are what makes our City unique, livable, and stronger. This work focused on artist career empowerment and racial equity and inclusion is well suited to be carried out throughout our arts sector - and is a necessary move in the right direction to advance equity in the community at large," said Mayor Erin Mendenhall.

The first grant program, available to individual emerging and professional Salt Lake City artists only, is the Artist Career Empowerment Grant. This grant is designed to buoy up the creative economic sector of Salt Lake City through direct cash payments to artists which are intended to enhance or empower their creative practices. The Salt Lake Arts Council believes that this grant program will stimulate and generate a significant economic impact and benefit to the artist recipient, the arts and cultural sectors, the creative community, and the economic ecosystems of the city at large.

The second grant program, available only to nonprofit 501(c)3 organizations, is the Racial Equity Grant. This grant is designed to cultivate greater and more consistent efforts and outputs related to racial equity, justice, inclusion, and liberation for nonprofits in the arts and culture sector of Salt Lake City. Full details of each grant program will be made available beginning on February 2 at 5:00 p.m. on the Salt Lake Arts Council grants webpage.

Grant eligibility and guidelines for both programs will be released before January 29 at 5:00 p.m. and applications will be open for submissions at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. All interested applicants are encouraged to thoroughly review the grant eligibility and usage guidelines. The deadline to receive all qualified applications is Tuesday, February 23 at 5:00 p.m. MST. Applications will be evaluated by a committee of the Salt Lake Arts Council Board of Directors and voted on at the March 17th public meeting. Award notifications will follow shortly after and recipients will have until August 31, 2021 to expend the funds.