Quick Grant for Professional Development

Quick Grant for Professional Development is sponsored by City of San José, Office of Cultural Affairs. This grant supports professional development for artists, arts organizations, and arts-rooted businesses in San José.

California for the Arts | Center for Cultural Innovation - Quick Grant Jobs Center for Cultural Innovation - Quick Grant In California on August 15, 2025 The Quick Grant program provides up to $600 in professional development funds to staff members of nonprofit arts organizations based in San Francisco or San José, as well as to California-based artists, creatives, cultural practitioners, and cultural producers.

This program supports artists and arts workers with funding to enroll in workshops, attend conferences, and work with consultants, coaches, and mentors in order to build their administrative capacity, hone business skills, and strengthen the financial resilience of an organization, artistic practice, or area of cultural production.

Effective July 16, 2025, the Quick Grant program is expanding its eligibility to include advocacy education and caregiving expenses. CCI understands that artists face growing pressure to self-advocate in the absence of traditional worker protections. We believe that this change supports the essential skill-building in policy engagement and systems change, critical to enhancing the capacity for artists to practice their work.

This update reflects our commitment to strengthening the financial resilience and long-term sustainability of individual artists and arts workers. In honor of Quick Grant's 15th anniversary in 2024, CCI commissioned an outside evaluator to tell the story of how a relatively small investment(a $600 microgrant) can have an outsized impact on an awardee.

If you're interested in learning more about the impact of the Quick Grant program over its 15-year history, you can read the full report here .

Individual Artists, Creatives, Cultural Practitioners, & Cultural Producers Must currently reside full-time within the State of California Nonprofit Arts Organization Staff Members Staff of a nonprofit, tax-exempt arts organization located in the City and County of San Francisco or the City of San José Staff of a fiscally sponsored arts organization with the majority (i.e., 75%) of the organization's public programming occurring within the City and County of San Francisco or the City of San José (see HOW TO APPLY section for additional eligibility requirements) To be eligible for Quick Grant funding, activities must: Build administrative capacity, hone business skills, and/or strengthen the financial resilience of the grantee’s practice, area of cultural production, or arts organization.

Begin after the application notification date. For example, for the August 15, 2025, deadline, the proposed activity must start on or after the notification date of September 16, 2025.

Funding may be used to support part or all of the following eligible expenses: Travel and hotel expenses associated with the participation in an eligible activity, regardless of distance from the applicant’s primary address or the organization’s location (eligible expenses can include meals, gas, parking, tolls, public transportation, etc.) Caregiving associated costs (e.g., childcare, daycare, eldercare, etc.) associated with the participation in an eligible activity.

Registration fees for conferences, festivals, workshops, and/or trainings Memberships or subscriptions that offer opportunities for professional networking, business or administrative skill development, and/or field knowledge Fees to engage a facilitator, executive coach, mentor, career counselor, or consultant to build administrative and business skills* Regarding consultant support, for a proposed activity to be competitive, it must be made clear that the applicant will be actively engaged in enhanced learning or receiving portable skills.

In other words, proposed activities MUST have an educational benefit or result in skill acquisition. Consequently, applications wherein sub-contract activities are proposed (e.g., hiring someone to moderate a webinar series, design a website on the applicant's behalf, or facilitate online sales) are not eligible.

*Due to limited resources, requests by Los Angeles County applicants to work one-on-one with a consultant are extremely competitive. Priority will instead go to Los Angeles County applicants who propose group activities such as public workshops, conferences, and trainings.)