Our Public Free Access program aims to reduce the significant barrier that admission fees pose to many King County residents— particularly underserved communities—and visitors in accessing quality, relevant, cultural experiences.

Grants may be used to support free and reduced cost participation in arts, heritage, preservation, or science and technology related experiences that meet the following criteria:

• Mission-based and meaningfully engages the attendee in the mission.

• In-person at venues in King County whereat head counts are taken and recorded.

• Provides an identical, not inferior, experience to attendees paying a standard fee.

• Produced/generated/created by your organization. This means actively engaged (e.g., providing financing and staffing) in generating the science or cultural programs, activities, exhibits, performances, or events. Active engagement must go beyond marketing and facility usage (e.g., house and technical staff). Partnerships with other eligible, King County cultural organizations for joint productions are allowed as long as you are actively engaged.

• Open and advertised to the general public without restriction or limitation by invitation, such that anyone who wishes to visit/attend/participate/purchase a ticket may do so.

Public Free Access grants will be based on the number of free and reduced cost attendance provided in the previous calendar year that meets the above criteria.

For this purpose, the following attendance definition applies:

• Attendance is per visit rather than per individual, e.g., a person participating in programming for free on two separate days would count as two attendees.
• For ongoing courses requiring registration, attendance is counted as one student per course taken during the year (rather than per class session).
• Reduced cost attendance includes participants paying fees less than 50% of the standard fee and less than or equal to $10 per person.
• “Standard fee” means the advertised, one-time, per program cost (or most common, per program cost if fees vary by time of purchase) of general admission to access a program.

Attendance does not include:

• Remote or virtual participants.
• Reduced cost attendance does not include participants paying fees more than 50% of the standard fee or more than $10 per person.
• Participants at open-air, ungated, and/or unmonitored venues whereat head counts are not taken and recorded.
• K-12 in-school activities or participation funded by 4Culture’s school access grants at other venues in King County. Please apply to our school access grant program, which is dedicated exclusively to supporting school access, for funds to support K-12 student programming.
• Unused tickets or memberships.
• Participants reported by another applicant for a Public Free Access grant.

Examples of attendance include: attending a performance in a theater, visiting an historic building, viewing a robotics demonstration, listening to a curator’s talk at a museum, touring a sculpture garden in which attendees are counted upon entry, taking a course on jewelry making, viewing a photography exhibit at a gallery, participating in a marine wildlife walking tour.

Examples of attendance do not include: attendance via online meeting, space rentals, private events, hosted events for which your organization is not the producer, activities in K-12 classrooms, ungated festivals in which attendees are not individually counted upon entry, unused tickets, attendance at a 25% discount of the standard fee, fundraising events, web site visits, newsletter subscriptions.

Documentation Required

Under the ordinance authorizing funds for Public Free Access grants, attendance reported to 4Culture must be verifiable. This means applicants must have documented their free and reduced cost attendance by some mechanism that recorded a head count and preserved the documentation in their records. Applicants must also be prepared to produce the documentation if requested by 4Culture.

Examples of acceptable documentation to verify attendance numbers (not an exhaustive list):

• Reports of redeemed tickets from a point of sale system.
• Signed and dated logs of attendee counts taken by volunteers with clickers at entrances.
• Signed and dated logs of counts of ticket stubs collected at a staffed gate. 
• Signed and dated logs of head counts taken by volunteers at a specific point in time at an event.
• Reports from automated people counters at venue entrances.

Attendance estimates cannot be accepted: attendance counts reported to 4Culture must match your documentation. Please contact 4Culture if you have any questions about whether your attendee counting methods or documentation meets this requirement.

If you intend to apply for a Public Free Access grant, plan now to ensure your organization is collecting and preserving attendance documentation.

Maintaining our focus on equitable access to funding, the Public Free Access program will minimize the burden of applying by automatically pre-qualifying current 4Culture Arts, Heritage, Preservation, or Science and Technology Sustained Support grant recipients if they meet all other program eligibility requirements.

To be eligible to receive Public Free Access program funds, you must meet the following requirements:

• Approved for current year funding in 4Culture’s Arts, Heritage, Preservation, or Science & Technology Sustained Support programs at the time of the posted application deadline.
• Provide mission-based, science or cultural experiences open and advertised to the public, King County residents and visitors, occurring between Jan. 1 – Dec. 31, 2025.
• Have 501(c)(3) IRS determination or a fiscal sponsor.
• Be a nongovernmental organization.

Equity Investments

Applicants located outside Seattle, located in and primarily serving a King County Community of Opportunity (see the map below), with the smallest operating budgets, and/or exhibiting other socio-economic indicators associated with underserved communities may also be eligible to receive an equity investment.

Equity investments are restricted to applicants with total expenses less than $5 million in their most recently completed IRS Form 990. Applicants located outside Seattle, located in and primarily serving a King County Community of Opportunity (see the map below), with the smallest operating budgets, and/or exhibiting other socio-economic indicators associated with underserved communities may also be eligible to receive an equity investment.

Communities of Opportunity

The Communities of Opportunity (COO) index was first developed in 2012 and includes a set of health and socioeconomic indicators to gauge community health and well-being. 4Culture aligns our equity investments with the COO index to identify the areas of King County in greatest need of support.

View this Communities of Opportunity map to determine whether your organization or primary venue is located in a COO. COO areas eligible for an equity investment in the Public Free Access program are outlined and in purple.

Contact Us

We are available by email and phone to assist you! Please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions.

Bart J. Cannon, PhD

206-263-1584

Workshops

Workshops provide an opportunity for you to meet staff, learn about the process, ask questions, and get application feedback. All workshops will be held online. Registration is required via the links provided.

Workshops for Public Free Access grants will be Q + A sessions; please read the guidelines and view the instructional video prior to attending a workshop.

If you are unable to attend a workshop, you can watch this instructional video:

Translation and Assistance

The guidelines, a detailed explanation of how to apply, and the application are in English. If this is a barrier that stops you from understanding the grant or applying due to limited English writing ability, visual impairment, or you would like to request assistance to create an application, please contact or call (206) 296-7580 or TTY 711, and we will make sure you get the support you need.

中文 (Chinese)

详细说明如何申请的指南以及申请本身均使用英文。如果由于英语写作能力有限、视力障碍而妨碍您对本资助的了解或申请，或者您希望请求协助来完成申请，请发送电子邮件至 或致电 (206) 296-7580 或 TTY (听障专线) 711 联系，我们会确保您获得所需的支持.

Русский (Russian)

Руководство, подробная инструкция и форма заявки на английском языке. Если вам сложно разобраться в процедуре получения грантов или подачи заявок из-за ограниченных навыков письменного английского языка либо нарушений зрения, а также если вы бы хотели обратиться за помощью при составлении заявки, отправьте письмо на адрес электронной почты или позвоните по номеру (206) 296-7580 или 711 (телетайп), и мы позаботимся о том, чтобы вы получили необходимую помощь.

Soomaali (Somali)

Tilmaamaha, sharaxaadda faahfaahsan ee ku saabsan sida loo codsado, iyo waraaqda codsiga waxa ay dhammaan ku qoran yihiin Af-Ingiriisi. Haddii ay arrintani tahay caqabad kaa hor istaageysa fahamka deeqda ama codsashada oo ay sabab u tahay awoodda qorista Af-Ingiriisiga oo xadidan, araggaaga oo liita, ama aad jeclaan lahayd inaad codsato in lagaa caawiyo in aad codsi sameyso, fadlan la xiriir ama wac (206) 296-7580 ama TTY 711, waxaana xaqiijin doonnaa inaad hesho taageerada aad u baahan tahay.

Español (Spanish)

Las pautas, la explicación detallada de cómo enviar la solicitud y la solicitud están en inglés. Si esto le impide comprender la información relacionada con la beca o enviar una solicitud debido a una limitación en la capacidad para escribir en inglés, si tiene una discapacidad visual o si desea recibir asistencia para crear una solicitud, escriba a o llame al (206) 296-7580 o TTY 711, y nos aseguraremos de que obtenga la ayuda que necesita.

Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)

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Applications must be approved by a community panel, after which funding must be recommended by an advisory committee as well as approved by 4Culture’s Board of Directors. This process may take up to three months after the deadline.

Contracts and Payment

If you are awarded a grant, a program manager will work with you to create a contract outlining your payment and public benefits (the free or reduced cost access) to be provided.

Requirements and Appeals

Learn about what will be required if you are awarded a grant, and about the process for appeal of a 4Culture decision.

When the grant opportunity opens, 4Culture staff will prepare a draft application for Sustained Support recipients.

You will apply through our online grant portal. We suggest you make certain you have an active account and that your organization profile is up to date. You’ll log in and be able to complete the Public Free Access application.

Once you’ve started your application, it can be saved as a draft that you can continue to work on up until the deadline. Once you click “Submit,” your application is no longer editable. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions during the process.

What’s in the Application?

The Public Free Access application is intended to place minimal burdens on applicants, having few questions to answer:

1. Attendance (free, reduced cost, and other paid) during the previous calendar year?
2. How did you count the attendance reported?
3. Documentation of the attendance reported?
4. Science and cultural experiences in the upcoming year at which you plan to offer free or reduced cost participation?
5. How do you prioritize reaching underserved communities?
6. Name of fiscal sponsor, if needed?

In addition, you must provide your most recently filed IRS Form 990 Total Expenses in your account profile for your application to be complete.

Demographic Information

Your profile in our application portal must provide demographic information for the current year for your board and staff. We use this information to help us understand how well we are doing in our efforts to reach all communities in King County.