Creative Optimism-Uplifting Promises Grants (CO-UP) is sponsored by City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA). Supports collaborations between social-justice nonprofits and artists for community-driven arts projects and public events. This could include projects addressing homelessness.

## **2025 ARTIST RESIDENCY OVERVIEW** **(Scroll to the bottom to find the Extended Application Window for CGP Outdoor Festival/Parade Projects information)** **Neighborhood Engagement Artist Residency** (**NEAR**) grants support freelance teaching artists, social-activation artists, and social practice artists in community-based, participatory projects in self-selected non-arts venues within the City of Los Angeles.

Competitive NEAR projects will gather, connect, and inspire participants and audiences who have little exposure to the proposed type of cultural opportunity.

NEAR projects should be structured as eleven or more free or low-cost sessions culminating in one or more presentations that are open and promoted to the general public (proposing at least eleven workshops is the ideal duration for community engagement; however, applicants are encouraged to propose projects that can be scaled back to five workshops with one public presentation, as DCA staff will notify NEAR applicants next May about whether the City budget is able to provide NEAR grantees with either a $12,000 or a reduced $6,000 service contract) **Creative Optimism–Uplifting Promises** (**CO-UP**) grants support collaborations between a local nonprofit social justice organization and a creative teaching artist (a freelance artist or an artist already working within a non-profit arts organization in the same community as the social justice organization).

In some cases, a third partner, acting as a host site for the project may also be named. Eligible collaborative projects should be: 1) new or launched within the past four years, 2) free or low-cost for participants, and 3) culminate in at least one free public presentation that will be accessible to the general community. CO-UP residences should be structured as eleven sessions ending in one public presentation.

CO-UP residencies are funded at $15,000 with $12,000 allocated for artist payment and $3,000 allocated for the social justice organization’s administrative expenses (meritorious CO-UP proposals that cannot be fully funded at $15,000, may be converted to a NEAR project consisting of five workshops and one culminating event with a budget of $6,000 — DCA staff will notify CO-UP applicants next May about whether the City budget able to provide grantees with either a $15,000 or a reduced $6,000 service contract) Depending upon its budget for FY25-26, DCA aims to support approximately 15-22 residences at either $6,000 or $12,000 (ideally one for each of the city’s 15 Council districts) and an additional 10-15 CO-UP residencies at $15,000 each.

DCA defines a social justice organization as any social service nonprofit organization that has a board-approved and publicly printed/repeated mission statement that names a primary cause for equality (which can be: cultural, economic, environmental, immigration, healthcare, or housing-based); as well as a history of both advocacy to rebalance public policies, and community-based programs to address the same historic/current inequity.

Religious, political and legal nonprofits are not eligible under this definition. Likewise, nonprofits that are statewide, national, or international in scale are not eligible at this time, because the pilot years of both the NEAR and CO-UP categories are aimed at local neighborhood and community impact.

Arts-based nonprofits should apply directly to DCA’s Cultural Grant Program category each August and should not be the primary applicant of a CO-UP proposal (although arts organizations in LA County may partner by lending an employee with expertise to collaborate with an eligible social justice organization on a CO-UP project).

* Supply creative arts resources to neighborhood host/partner organizations in each Council District by providing direct and intimate access to contemporary teaching-artists; * Support projects that will consistently engage no less than 20 participants on some topic of thematic learning, and the group will culminate their workshops by staging a final presentation to be viewed by no less than 40 other individuals.

* Sponsor the implementation of educational-participatory 6 or 12-session residencies by a spectrum of the City’s most qualified teaching-artists; and, * Provide host organizations offering little or no arts programming with opportunities to test or develop new services, and envision the integration of either an artist-employee, a new branch of programs into its core service, or a new collaboration with a local arts-organization.

* Applicants for a**NEAR** residency are individual artists (or collaborative duos/teams/ensembles under the leadership of a single applicant), whose community-based practices have been largely self-developed and remain primarily self-directed; * Applicants for a**CO-UP** residency grant are social justice nonprofit organizations headquartered in Los Angeles County with an operating budget of at least $100,000 (as demonstrated by the applicant’s most recently filed IRS Form 990).

* All applicants (whether individual or nonprofit must either reside in or be headquartered in Los Angeles County and all proposed projects must take place and culminate within the City of Los Angeles; * Teaching artists should demonstrate through their resume(s) at least 2 years of experience instructing participants in the proposed artistic discipline within projects at non-arts venues, public schools, parks, libraries, and/or similar community centers; * NEAR applicants will propose a residency involving a relationship with one non-arts host organization, to take place at the same host organization’s location.

**ARTIST RESIDENCY PROGRAM WEBINARS** Two webinar workshops will be offered in early to mid-October. Space is limited to 30 participants per webinar. Please note that these online webinars fill out quickly.

If you are interested in attending an online session live, we recommend registering promptly. Recordings of the webinars will also be available. Workshops/webinars link:www.

dcaredesign. org/air/workshops ### **APPLICATION TIMELINE** * Opens Wednesday, September 24, 2025 * Deadline to apply is Friday, October 31, 2025 * Applicants will receive notification of results in May/June 2026 * Grant activity/projects will take place between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027 ### **GUIDELINES AND APPLICATION:** For full program information, please review the program guidelines available at:dcaredesign. org/air/.

After you have reviewed the guidelines, please proceed to prepare and submit an application at:dca-la. smapply. org.

### **Extended Application Window for CGP Outdoor Festival/Parade Projects** DCA is extending the application window for Outdoor Festival/Parade project proposals within the Cultural Grant Program (CGP). Outdoor Festival/Parade proposals are framed around an outdoor event that will take place at a single freely accessible public site (e.g. public street, set of adjacent streets, set of sidewalks, public park, public plaza, ….)

over one day or over one weekend. Generally festivals projects are annual, seasonal or quarterly. Generally speaking, the purpose of a festival/parade applicant will be cultural expression and/or neighborhood cohesion.

This special category allows arts-friendly but not-arts-specific organizations to apply for a grant with a collaborating producer, or an arts nonprofit to apply for a second grant if the proposed festival will take place in an outdoor public site (not a private outdoor space).

Any nonprofit organization such as a chamber of commerce, social service agency, or homeowners association may request support for a community art-walk, festival, or parade (that is non-religious in nature). The ideal primary applicant is a nonprofit arts organization or business association with a minimum operating budget of $20,000 per year.

Festival collaborators should determine the primary applicant by deciding which agency or producer is best qualified to fulfill government reporting/invoicing requirements and show a history of artistic accomplishments.

If the primary applicant of a festival proposal is not an arts-specific nonprofit organization, which precludes the agency from opening a DataArts profile, then the proposal should include a Form-990 or official audit as an attachment. DCA’s definition of “festival” in this category is an event where at least four separate acts are presented.

If the applicant is the producer of a proposed festival where they are performing or presenting themselves, the applicant needs to present three other, non-affiliated groups, acts, and artists (who are preferably not DCA grantees).

A company producing and presenting only themselves would be an outdoor performance within a discipline-category and would not be welcome in DCA’s Outdoor Festivals category; instead, such projects should be submitted in the correct discipline-category as an Artistic Project. Outdoor Festival/Parade proposals may include educational engagements only if such sessions are taking place during the day of the event.

Expenses to produce a workshop series before or after the proposed event should be included in the same DCA proposal. Workshops series are beyond the entertainment function of a festival and these series might be shaped into a different proposal in a separate category or proposed to funders other than DCA.

Community workshops which build festival elements (sequential learning) may be described as unbudgeted pretext, knowing that DCA reserves this category to primarily pay for professional artist-presentations which beget wide public enjoyment (open mic events and competitions wherein some performers/presenters do not “win” a payment are NOT eligible).

Annual Outdoor Festivals/Parades that include the same artists/acts year after year, may not be funded. Please note that festival events with artistic rosters that change less than 29% in participants are not eligible for DCA support.

Outdoor Festival/Parade applicants must designate one of the following choices in our application forms: * 30-40% new artists (as compared to the past two years) * 41-50% new artists (as compared to the past two years), or * 51% or more new artists (as compared to the past two years). Multi-site events are not eligible in DCA’s festival category but may compete under the discipline of their focus.

For example, an outdoor film screening series which takes place in three separate public plazas should compete in media arts in order to be reviewed by film experts; and a concert series which takes in two separate public plazas should be reviewed by music, dance, or multidisciplinary arts experts.

In addition, DCA’s Outdoor Festival/Parade category does support: concert series over multiple weeks, or community events that include simultaneous events at non-contiguous locations. These proposals belong in DCA ‘s Multidisciplinary category. Special note regarding young artist (unpaid) performers.

We ask that youth performers be mentioned as a sidebar in any set of application attachments, since DCA funding is proportioned to support adult jobs, whereas learning-experiences are separate metrics.

### **APPLICATION TIMELINE** * Deadline to apply is Friday, October 31, 2025 * Applicants will receive notification of results in May/June 2026 * Grant activity/projects will take place between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027 ### **GUIDELINES AND APPLICATION:** Please proceed to prepare and submit an application at:dca-la. smapply. org.