Mayor's Grant for Cultural Impact

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In FY20 the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) will continue the Mayor's Grant for Cultural Impact, an initiative that supports partnerships between New York City's municipal agencies and cultural organizations that collaborate to use arts and culture to reach underserved and vulnerable New Yorkers. This program, now in its third year, supports DCLA's commitment to coordinate and promote engagement between the City and New York's cultural community as outlined in the CreateNYC cultural plan released in July 2017.

The goals of the Mayor's Grant for Cultural Impact are to:

  • Create opportunities that will demonstrate the effectiveness of arts and culture as a mechanism for impactful service delivery
  • Allow city agencies to experiment with and test new models for, or to expand, existing successful programs
  • Support strengthened partnerships between cultural organizations and city agencies
  • Expand NYC residents' access to arts and culture by leveraging the reach of city agencies
  • Broaden programming, funding, and audience-building opportunities for arts and cultural organizations
  • Integrate arts and culture into efforts to improve social wellbeing in low income neighborhoods

In FY19 DCLA awarded ten grants of $50,000 each to arts and cultural organizations working in partnership with city agencies to address pressing civic issues. In FY20 DCLA expects to renew four grants, extending the partnerships into a second year, and will award grants to four new partnerships. City agency partners are expected to provide a minimum contribution of $25,000 (cash or in-kind) to the proposed project.


The FY20 application deadline was 11:59pm on Monday, October 21, 2019. The Application is now closed.

Applications must be submitted by the cultural partner. For FY20, eligible applicants must have submitted an FY20 Cultural Development Fund application or be members of the Cultural Institutions Group. Please review the guidelines carefully before submitting an application. Each cultural organization and city agency may select only one partner and may submit only one application.

Download application guidelines
View a list of eligible partner city agencies

Download complete application

Information Session - FY20 Mayor's Grant for Cultural Impact
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
31 Chambers Street, Room 209

Friday, September 27
11:00am - 12:00pm

RSVP required, register online