Mission

Creative Capital supports underserved, risk-taking artists in the creation of new work and in building sustainable practices.

“When I got the Creative Capital Award, it was incredibly meaningful to be recognized as someone who was worthy of financial support and the prestige of the grant. What it gave me was the time, the ability, and permission to focus on the project to treat it with respect, and to allow it to unfurl on its own terms.”

Ry Russo-Young

“Creative Capital is focused on our possibilities, not our limitations. And they remind us that our greatest resource as artists is one another, is our vibrant arts community. We must continue to be responsible for one another, especially in these uncertain times. I am continually grateful for the gifts and the example of Creative Capital.”

Daniel Alexander Jones

“Creative Capital is the most impactful support I’ve received for my work for one entity in the history of my career.”

Barbara Hammer

“Anything important we address in our society, artists have always led the way—but artists need help in doing so. All the issues that Creative Capital has brought to the forefront through their funding program has been invaluable to our society.”

Paul Rucker

“It is because of teams like yours at Creative Capital that we are able to keep the struggle alive for socially relevant art. You are doing the behind the scenes, sweaty work that is vital and so necessary to keep difficult public conversations real.”

Cristina Ibarra

Vision

To champion artistic freedom of expression, to be at the forefront of discovering and fostering the creation of radical art, and to build a wild and wondrous artist-centered community that inspires a global public.

Impact

Creative Capital pioneered a transformative grantmaking model that marries direct funding to individual artists with infrastructure and scaffolding support through professional development services, advisory services, community-building, and mentorship. The Creative Capital philanthropic model has impacted not just artists, but the arts ecosystem as a whole—inspiring countless other nonprofits to invest in the long-term, sustainable careers of artists.

Each year, Creative Capital receives approximately 4,000 artist project applications. To date, Creative Capital has awarded millions in grants and services to 901 artists to create 730 innovative new projects. We are recognized for funding risk-taking artists working across a diverse array of disciplines, and for identifying and supporting talent at catalytic moments in artists’ careers. Creative Capital professional development, educational programs, and workshops have served more than 80,000 artists nationwide.

Creative Capital Awardees have gone on to build thriving practices, build their own businesses, acquire gallery spaces and real estate, and give back to local communities and to Creative Capital in meaningful ways. More than 75% of recent awardees are Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or artists of color representing a wide range of age groups, artistic disciplines, and regions. Our awardees have received prestigious honors and other accolades, including: 148 Guggenheim Fellowships, 19 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowships, and 3 Academy Awards and 14 nominations.

History

In 1999, Creative Capital was established as a nonprofit public charity after the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) ended the majority of its grants for individual artists. Archibald L. Gillies, then President of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, believed that fostering artists’ freedom of expression was critical to democracy. At the heart of our organization is a deep commitment to a democratic process of grantmaking that is open call, national, and accessible to individual artists working in the visual arts, performing arts, technology, film/moving image, literature, socially engaged and multidisciplinary forms.

Creative Capital was created with the express purpose of funding the creation of experimental, innovative new projects via direct financial support to individual artists. Ruby Lerner, Founding President & Executive Director, developed a new model for cultural philanthropy that adopted elements of the venture capital ethos, in particular the ways in which entrepreneurs in the tech sector were being holistically supported.

Values

Creative Capital believes in:

Advocating for freedom of expression
Challenging formal, social, and political conventions
Fostering a spirit of mutual generosity, seeking to foster a diverse and equitable ecosystem in the arts
Developing more sustainable social, economic, and environmental practices

Land Acknowledgment

Creative Capital would like to call attention to the complex history of the lands on which we live and work. Our headquarters are situated on the unceded, ancestral homelands of the Lenape people, called Lenapehoking, commonly referred to as Manhattan. The Creative Capital website and servers occupy Ohlone, Chochenyo, and Ramaytush land, commonly referred to as South Beach, California, and Tongva land, commonly referred to as Los Angeles.

We commit to responsible stewardship of the land and respect for the First Nations. We also acknowledge the people forcibly taken from their ancestral lands in Africa and enslaved to build the economic infrastructure from which this country now benefits. We furthermore recognize the interconnections between the enduring impacts of colonization, enslavement, and our current climate emergency, which manifest in a myriad of ways including habitat destruction and global dispossession, environmental exploitation in Indigenous communities and in communities of color, and climate refugee crises.

Creative Capital commits to being more sustainable in its operations including: reducing energy consumption, limiting air travel, using recycled paper products, eliminating unnecessary single use plastic, and impact investing.