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Applying


The Fiscal Year 2025 Cultural Development Fund (CDF) application will launch on Monday, May 20, 2024.

The application deadline will be 5:00PM, ET on Thursday, June 27, 2024.


Eligibility Requirements

If you have questions about your organization’s eligibility, please take this quick and easy online Eligibility Quiz.

DCLA will consider proposals in every cultural discipline, and from every area of New York City, for services that take place within the five boroughs and within the City’s Fiscal Year 2025 (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025). 

All proposals must offer to provide a cultural activity of recognized quality that is accessible to the public during Fiscal Year 2025. Funded services can be as different as the organizations providing them, but they will all have a common commitment to cultural public service and public participation in the arts.

An Eligible organization will: 

  • Be either a nonprofit arts or cultural organization, or a nonprofit organization that has an arts or culture component in its broader mission.
  • Demonstrate successful delivery of arts and cultural services in New York City for the last two consecutive years.
  • Be based in New York City and able to demonstrate administrative and programmatic operations within any of the five boroughs of New York City. Your administrative address is determined by your IRS 990, 501(c)(3) letter, and other publicly available information.
  • Possess a unique Federal Employee Identification Number (EIN).
  • Be certified as tax exempt under Internal Revenue Service Code Section 501(c)(3); or be an incorporated nonprofit that uses a DCLA pre-approved, New York State incorporated tax-exempt fiscal sponsor. Only nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply, regardless of whether they use a fiscal sponsor.  Limited Liability Companies, Benefit corporations, Limited Partnerships, and individual artists are not eligible to apply.  
  • Be incorporated in New York State as a not-for-profit organization no later than the organization’s fiscal year 2022.

The following entities are not eligible to receive CDF funds:

  • Unincorporated individual artists or artist collectives
  • Limited Liability Companies, Benefit Corporations, Limited Partnerships
  • Parent Teacher associations or organizations
  • Nonprofit organizations without IRS 501(c)3 tax exempt status do not utilize an eligible fiscal sponsor.  
  • Nonprofit organizations with chapters, offices, branches, or general activity in New York City but that are administratively based outside of New York City
  • Members of DCLA’s Cultural Institutions Group
  • Programs of City, State or Federal agencies
  • Libraries or degree-granting institutions, including schools, colleges, and universities; organizations that are affiliated with such institutions should contact DCLA prior to applying to determine eligibility.
  • Organizations without a history of providing services in arts and culture as well as related income and expenses in the last two years.
  • Organizations that are not in compliance with DCLA’s previous grant reporting requirements

To receive funds, grantees must be compliant with annual State and Federal filing requirements for nonprofit organizations, including New York State Charities Bureau filings as a non-profit organization. 


Application Resources

Review the FY25 CDF materials below before submitting your application:


 

Application Worksheets

We’ve created an editable application worksheet and budget worksheet to help you prepare your application submission offline. The application worksheet includes all questions on the application as well as an indicator of the character count allowed for each narrative question. These worksheets are optional tools. You are not required to use them, and they are not a replacement for the online application. You must submit your CDF application and supplementary materials through our online portal.  



Application Templates

Download and complete the templates below if our Guidelines indicate that you’re required to upload them to your online application.



Support and Questions

For questions about the CDF guidelines, instructions or application content, contact your organization’s program officer directly via email.  New applicants, and those who do not have a program officer, may contact the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Program Services Help Desk at cdfhelpdesk@culture.nyc.gov. New applicants will be assigned a program officer after the application period closes

If you are experiencing technical issues with the CDF application form, submit the IT support form.  

 

Application Webinars

After reviewing the resources provided above, we strongly encourage all applicants to attend a CDF application webinar. These tutorials give applicants the opportunity to ask questions of DCLA staff and prepare a competitive CDF application. Each webinar will feature the same presentation, and is expected to last approximately 90 minutes including Q&A. 

Please send no more than two representatives from your organization; each webinar has a limit of 500 attendees. Each attendee must register separately.

If you are unable to attend a live webinar, the first webinar will be recorded, captioned, and made available on this website. 

 

Office Hours 

Virtual Office Hours are meant for applicants who have already reviewed the Fiscal 2025 application materials, attended/viewed the FY25 CDF webinar and still have questions related to the CDF application process. 

When registering, you will be asked to submit your question in advance. In order to give DCLA staff time to prepare, we ask that you register no less than 24 hours before the office hour session you wish to attend.  

Office hour sessions will be 60 minutes long and program officers will be present for the entire hour. Participants may come and go as is convenient for them.


Accessibility

For questions regarding accessibility or requests for an accommodation, please contact Sara Cobb, DCLA’s Disability Service Facilitator, at disabilityfacilitator@culture.nyc.gov.

 

CDF Panelists

DCLA is currently seeking panelists to serve for the FY25 CDF review period. To learn more about the panelist application process as well as how to serve, please click here.


FY24 CDF Grantees

Notification of the outcome of the FY24 CDF application process has been sent to all applicants. Please log in to the CDF web portal and click “View/Download” section of your FY24 CDF Grant Tile, accessible via the Dashboard in the DCLA portal, to access your FY24 CDF notification documents.

The Fiscal 2024 funding requirements for all CDF grantees is available; please download this PDF for instructions on returning your grant agreement, and other compliance requirements. 


Launch the CDF Application