Appalachian Futures General Fund

The Waymakers Collective is proud to announce our open call for grants for individual artists and organizations who are contributing to imagining Appalachian Futures — particularly with a focus on art and cultural practices that propose more just and inclusive alternatives. This includes work on a personal scale, a social scale, and an ecological scale. We invite applications from artists and organizations that are working at the intersections of arts and culture and decolonization, sustainability, anti-carceral organizing, liberation, and other areas helping to support non-oppressive futures in the region to apply for these $5,000 project grants.

This opportunity is open to individual artists, cultural organizations, and cultural bearers in the Appalachian counties of Ohio, West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Western North Carolina. This opportunity is more than a $5,000 project grant; individuals and organizations awarded grants will have the opportunity to join the Waymakers Collective and have access to convenings, online events, potential access to additional funding, and voting rights as part of the Collective community.  

The open call will be for individual artists, culture bearers, and cultural organizations whose work fits into one of our five core strategies [below] identified by the Waymakers Collective for how arts and culture can create a better future for our region: 

  • Shifting Narratives: Telling stories through a variety of mediums of who we are, where we are, and what we do that combat stereotypes and foster Appalachian pride

  • Regionalist/ Network: Linking artists, cultural workers, groups, organizations, and supportive communities for peer exchange, collaboration and advocacy — locally, regionally, and across all of Central Appalachia

  • Direct Support: Nurturing artists, culture bearers, cultural workers, groups, and organizations to encourage engagement and creative transformation throughout the region

  • Healing + Restoration: Supporting individuals and communities to respond to generational traumas in holistic ways that build resiliency and sustainability; support that recognizes historic and systemic injustices that have directly impacted marginalized communities in Central Appalachia

  • Removing Barriers: Creating new and accessible pathways to opportunity – both physical and intangible – for artists, cultural workers, groups, and organizations that are now blocked from the tables of power

Grant Timeline:
— Wednesday, September 9: Application opens
— Friday, October 9: Application closes
— Tuesday, November 17: Awards announced

APPLY HERE!