ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community, and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $3 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects, and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
STATEMENT ON OPPORTUNITY EQUITY
Charlotte Street values an equitable, diverse, and inclusive art community, which we interpret as all artists having fair access to the tools and resources they need to realize their artistic endeavors. We acknowledge structural inequities that have excluded individuals and communities from opportunities based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, age, and geography, and strive to counter those inequities in our work. We encourage panelists and selection committees to actively consider and seek to recommend a diverse pool of applicants as finalists and recipients of these awards and all Charlotte Street programs.
ArtsKC, Charlotte Street, and the Hall Family Foundation are requesting proposals for capacity-building support for art-focused, small organizations (annual budget at or below $500,000) located or serving key geographic areas that represent a broad swath of art forms, offering accessible programming to our community.
Selected organizations will represent diverse artistic disciplines and forms of social engagement and must provide accessible programming for communities in the geographic areas of the Historic Northeast, Eastside Kansas City, and Northeast Wyandotte County.
- Fifteen arts-engaged organizations will receive $15,000 in unrestricted funding per year for two years.
- ArtsKC will provide capacity-building assessments, subject matter experts, and project implementation support (value of up to $10,000 per year per organization).
- Grantees will be expected to work with ArtsKC to carry out their capacity-building initiatives as well as share learnings with other awardees in a cohort model, which may include artist awardees as well.
- Documentation, evaluation, and/or presentations on projects will be required.
This project seeks to build organizations’ long-term viability, including growing community engagement, stabilizing finances and personnel, identifying and resolving organizational needs, strategic planning, developing evaluation metrics and competencies, or other identified priorities.
Timeline:
- Application Deadline: November 24, 2026
- Jury will meet in December, 2026 and January, 2027
- Grant decisions announcements will be in late January 2027
Eligibility
- Be a registered not-for-profit art-focused organization (or fiscally sponsored)
- Have an annual budget at or below $500,000
- Be principally located in or serving one of the following geographic areas: Historic Northeast Kansas City, Eastside of Downtown Kansas City, Northeast Corner of Wyandotte County
- Have a governing body with bylaws
- Have at least one year of financial records and established history of programming
ArtsKC, Charlotte Street, and the Hall Family Foundation are requesting proposals for individual artist-led projects, serving key geographic areas that represent a broad swath of art forms and engaging with a particular civic issue in the neighborhood.
Selected artists must provide accessible programming for communities in the geographic areas of the Historic Northeast, Eastside Kansas City, and Northeast Wyandotte County.
- 10 artists will receive grants of $50,000 over a 2-year project period.
The artist application will have a two-step process. First, artists will send an LOI (Letter of Interest), which will be uploaded as a one-page letter and up to 5 digital images. Secondly, the finalist pool will be invited to submit a full application and invited for a brief in-person interview with the selection committee. Following the selection committee interviews, the 10 artists will be selected.
Timeline:
- Application Deadline for LOI: September 30, 2026
- Full Application Deadline for invited artists: November 24, 2026
- Jury will meet with invited artists in early January 2027
- Grant decisions announcements will be in late January 2027
Eligibility
- Be principally located in or serving one of the following geographic areas: Historic Northeast Kansas City, Eastside Kansas City, or Northeastern Wyandotte County, KS
- Must be over 21 years of age
- Cannot be a full-time student enrolled in a degree-seeking program