Artist Emergency Relief Fund is sponsored by Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. Provides financial assistance to individual artists facing critical needs related to personal healthcare, housing, equipment, or legal emergencies since January 1, 2025.

Emergency Relief Fund – Arrowhead Regional Arts Council The Emergency Relief Fund Program provides $500 or $1000 to individual artists who have had a critical need relating to personal healthcare, housing, equipment, or legal emergencies since January 1, 2025. This program is intended to serve our community by addressing an individual artist’s recent and substantially disruptive emergency or disaster.

Award Amounts: $500 or $1,000 Application Opens: March 22, 2026 Deadline: May 3, 2026 before 11:59 pm Decision Date: May 20, 2026 Award Notification: Week of May 21, 2026 Emergency Relief Period: January 1, 2025 – Present (The time frame in which the emergency happened) For any ADA accommodation requests throughout the application process, please reach out to info@aracouncil. org for support.

Please read all eligibility criteria prior to submitting your application. If you have any questions AFTER reading the full program guidelines, please email info@aracouncil. org for further support.

Applicant must abide by the following guidelines to be eligible for funding: Applicant must have been a resident of the Arrowhead Region for at least 6 months prior to the application deadline, as determined by their voting address and/or the payment of Federal, State, and local taxes Applicants must live in ARAC’s service region consisting of the following seven (7) counties: Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake, and St.

Louis, and/or one of the following four (4) Tribal Nations: Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (District I) Applicant must be applying as an individual.

No organizations or LLCs will be eligible for funding Applicant must be eighteen (18) years of age or older and be a U.S. citizen or have permanent resident status Applicant must be a practicing artist An eligible emergency/disaster is defined as an event or circumstance that is unforeseeable, unexpected, outside your control, and has a recent and substantially disruptive effect on the applicant’s artistic practice and/or livelihood Applicant’s emergency must have occurred since January 1, 2025, and be related to Healthcare, Housing, Equipment, or Legal Emergencies.

Examples include, but are not limited to: Loss, theft, or damage of transportation Loss, theft, or damage to art equipment If you have any clarifying questions, email info@aracouncil. org .

Applicants may only receive one (1) emergency relief fund award per fiscal year Returning applicants must have filed satisfactory final reports through the Grant Portal for all prior ARAC-funded projects All applications will be made available on our website on the application open date and must be submitted via our secure online grants management system, Foundant .

If you would like to apply on another person’s behalf please reach out to info@aracouncil. org . If you don’t have access to a computer, you may arrange a time to use a computer at the ARAC offices or your local library ARAC Staff is available to assist applicants throughout the process.

Please reach out to info@aracouncil. org with any questions. Applications close at 11:59 p.

m. on the due date. Submissions after the deadline will not be accepted.

Exceptions will only be made in very specific, rare circumstances. Any exception requests must be made in writing to grants@aracouncil.

org as soon as possible after the application deadline for consideration STEP 2 - ELIGIBILITY REVIEW After the application deadline, applications will go into an Eligibility Review by ARAC Staff During this time, applicants may receive emails from staff regarding technical issues, incomplete information, or eligibility-related questions.

After passing eligibility review, applications will move forward to the randomized drawing to provide recommendations to the ARAC Board of Directors for final approval. STEP 3 - Randomized Drawing This program is non - competitive , meaning that all results will be based on a random numerical drawing.

To increase the geographic equity of fund distribution, ARAC will be assigning one extra entry to applicants from outside Duluth city limits. Due to limited resources in the greater Arrowhead Region, the intent is to help ensure that applicants from these communities have more equitable access to public funding.

After the final drawing is reviewed and approved by the ARAC Board of Directors at their quarterly board meeting, all eligible applicants will receive an award approval or denial notice via email within a week of the board meeting decision date. To officially accept the award, awardees will be issued the required follow-up form(s) within their Portal to complete promptly before payment can be issued.

Once complete, the award payment will be issued in the full amount requested. After accepting, awardees can expect payment within 6 weeks. Failure to respond or accept the award within the acceptance period could result in the loss of funding.

Please monitor your email for official correspondence throughout the application period. Out of respect for the applicant’s privacy, ARAC will not publicly announce the awardees of the Emergency Relief Fund Program. This cash award is considered a non-taxable gift rather than taxable income, such as a grant award.

The Emergency Relief Fund program intends to disperse these funds as quickly as possible. The application will be open from March 22, 2026, through May 3, 2026. After this, staff will tabulate and provide the results to ARAC Board of Directors for review and approval at their next quarterly Board Meeting on May 20, 2026.

This program is non-competitive, meaning that all results will be based on a random numerical drawing rather than a Community Review Panel.

Qualified applicants should apply regardless of their race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, pregnancy, use of a support animal, educational background, or status as a qualified individual with a disability or protected veteran.

Individuals who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color, people with disabilities, people age 65 and older, military veterans, and/or individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, agender, Two-Spirit (LGBTQIA2+) are encouraged to apply. The Artists Emergency Relief Fund Network is stewarded by Springboard for the Arts and supported in part by F. R.

Bigelow Foundation, Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.

If you would like to contribute to future Emergency Relief FundPrograms , consider making a donation to the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. To advocate for the arts and this critical funding, consider becoming a member of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts or joining ARAC annually at Arts Advocacy Day in St. Paul!

Organized in 1974, MCA is the oldest continuously operating statewide arts advocacy organization in the country. As one of the nation’s leading advocacy groups for the arts, MCA has been organizing the creative community for decades to protect and defend this essential State funding for the arts.

Thanks to their work alongside arts advocates at the State Capitol, critical funding remains secure for Minnesotans to have access to and involvement in the arts. Learn more about their mission here .