Core Criteria:

• Artistic impact: the chosen criteria accurately describes the project’s artistic goal and impact:

  • Continuity: your project continues a long-term artistic practice or tradition and demonstrates value in sustaining or repeating this work.

  • Growth: your project expands your practice, medium, or artwork in new directions, and shows artistic development.

  • OR Engagement: your project focuses on participation, arts education, or collaboration beyond a presentation. The project intentionally engages or collaborates with specific communities based on their interests and needs.

• Public benefit: art is the primary component of your project. The project includes a compelling and feasible public event for King County residents and visitors to enjoy, experience, or benefit from the art or artmaking. The project makes clear efforts to be accessible to many ages, disabilities, languages, and communities.

• Quality and qualifications: your work samples and experience show an ability to successfully complete the project. If applying as a group, the lead or partnering artists have the relevant experience to achieve the project. Qualifications can be skill, experience, training, or knowledge-based.

• Feasibility: your project will be completed within the 2-year grant period, with a practical timeline and thoughtful planning. This is demonstrated through the qualifications of the applicant, realistic and balanced budget, and details provided in the Project Plan section.

• Advancing equity (optional): 4Culture’s mission focuses on racial equity and envisions a county where culture is essential and accessible to all. Your project specifically benefits communities of color and/or historically marginalized communities. The project serves or collaborates with members of these communities This is not a requirement.

• Individuals must be at least 18 years old and a resident of King County when you apply through completion of your project.
• If selected for an award, you must provide a Social Security Number to receive payment. No fiscal sponsors may be used.
• You may only submit one application per year. Multiple applicants may not apply for the same project.
• The following are not eligible to apply:
  • 4Culture staff, Board, or Arts Advisory Committee members.
  • 2025 Art Projects for Individuals grant recipients.
  • Art Projects grant recipients with incomplete contracts.
  • Individuals applying on behalf of a current Sustained Support organization. If you are staff at a Sustained Support organization, please let us know in your application (search current awardees here).
  • 2026 Art Projects for Individuals selection panelists.

• Groups must be based in King County with a core mission dedicated to the arts. If your group is not arts-focused, you must have a formal partnership with an artist or art group.
• If selected for an award, you must provide an Employer Identification Number (sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp, General Partnership, nonprofit, etc.). Your EIN must be registered under the same group name as your 4Culture account. We cannot accept proprietorships under personal names or Social Security Numbers.
• Fiscally sponsored groups and nonprofits are eligible but not required.
• An arts group is led by two or more artists who share equal credit and decision-making for the project, and work together under a group name. If your project is led by one person, even if you are working with a team to help produce it, please apply as an Individual.
• An arts group is led by two or more artists who share equal credit and decision-making for the project, and work together under a group name. If your project is led by one person, even if you are working with a team, please apply as an Individual.
• Groups may only submit one application per year. Multiple applicants may not apply for the same project.
• The following are not eligible to apply:
  • 2025 Art Projects for Groups grant recipients.
  • Art Projects for Groups grant recipients with incomplete contracts.
  • Groups applying on behalf of a current Sustained Support organization. If members of your group are staff at a Sustained Support organization, please let us know in your application (search current awardees here).
  • 2026 Art Projects for Groups selection panelists.

• Your project creates art of any discipline that offers an opportunity for our King County communities to experience or participate in your project. Projects can include readings, screenings, exhibitions, performances, festivals, workshops, collaborative artmaking, residencies, conferences, discussions, and more. Projects can be the creation of new work or the interpretation of existing work.
• If your Art Project involves heritage or historic preservation work and you are interested in applying for multiple Projects grants, you must contact the Program Manager for approval. You may request funding for different elements of your project, but you must disclose this in your application and budget. Applications that do not meet this requirement may be ruled ineligible.
• Your project, or a phase of a larger project, must take place between July 1, 2026—July 1, 2028.
•  You may request funding for $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, $10,000, $12,500, or $15,000.

• Projects produced or funded by a 4Culture Sustained Support organization (search current awardees here)
• Food and beverages
• Purchase of equipment (see our Equipment for Organizations grant)
• Murals and permanent public art
• Religious worship, exercise, or instruction
• K-12 schools or school districts (see our Curiosity Pass grant)
• Tuition and cost-of-living expenses for students in any degree program
• Fundraising events and/or fundraising expenses
• General operating support (see Launch or Sustained Support grants)
• Capital construction (see our Facilities grant)

Worksheet

Click to download the 2026 worksheet: Individuals | Groups

This worksheet includes the full application with helpful tips. Use this to work offline, draft your responses, and then copy-and-paste them into the online application.

Sample Applications

Here are samples of applications that received funding: Individuals | Groups 

See last year’s grant recipients on our Awardees page: Individuals | Groups 

• March 11, 2026 at 5:00 pm PT: applications due
• April–May: panel review
• By July 1: award notifications
• July–November: contracting
• July 1, 2026–July 1, 2028: grant period

Narrative Questions

You will be required to answer five narrative questions based on the criteria. In addition, applications must include all the following materials to be eligible. We strongly recommend assembling them before you begin your application.

Project Budget

Use the budget form to share the planned expenses and income for the project. In the notes section, provide more detail on each category and how you would use the grant funds. The total expenses and revenues must match, including in-kind expenses and revenues. Please refer to “Are You and Your Project Eligible?” section above for eligible uses.

Venue

Complete this section if you know the name and address of the project’s venue or location. If you do not yet have a venue, please skip down to Project Venue Notes, and share the type of venue you would like to use and why. If you are planning to use more than one venue, indicate that in the Project Venue Notes as well.

Work Samples

You must submit samples of past work that best demonstrate your qualifications for your project. We recommend prioritizing your work samples by selecting the most relevant to your proposed project—in scope, scale, complexity, or subject matter.

We accept images, text documents, videos, and audio in the following formats:

• File Attachments (images and documents): JPEG, PDF, or Word Document under 2MB each
• Links (video and audio): YouTube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud – links must be public or unlisted (no password)

Work samples must be under 5 minutes or 5 pages total. For longer work samples, please note what section should be reviewed in the Work Sample Description.

To resize files to under 2MB, you can use free websites like Image Resizer and PDF Resizer.

The following formats are not accepted and will not be reviewed:

• Links to websites, social media, cloud storage, film databases, resume/CV websites, or links requiring passwords.
• Attachments over 2MB each.
• Full resumes.

Work Sample Description

Please prepare the following information for all work samples:

• Titles of the work samples in the order in which they are to be reviewed.
• Date the works were completed or if they are in-progress.
• Your role (e.g. “I was the choreographer and director of this project.”).

Documents: note if the samples are complete works, abstracts, excerpts, or a collection.

Images: share the medium, dimensions, and image credits.

You may elect to write a few brief sentences about each work sample.

Demographic Information

Your Account profile in our application portal must provide demographic information for the current year. Individuals must provide your own demographics; and Groups must provide demographics for your leaders, and staff and board, if any. We use this information to make sure we are equitably reaching all communities in King County. All information will be kept confidential and will not be used in funding decisions.

Click here for more information or directly access the demographic survey here: Individuals | Groups.