NYFA sponsors organizations whose programming is nonprofit in nature and serves the public. This part asks about your organization's work, programs, and plans. Reviewers look for a clear picture of what you offer, who you serve, and how you will sustain it. Your answers here should match the fundraising plan and budgets you submit in Part 5.
NYFA must be your only fiscal sponsor. The one exception is a local fiscal sponsor used solely for a specific local or state grant that requires one.
If you have a local sponsor for that purpose, you will be asked to describe it in this section.
If you have an active sponsorship elsewhere, you must formally end it before you join NYFA Fiscal Sponsorship. This process can occur during or after acceptance, provided the organization is ready to leave its current fiscal sponsor upon being accepted. Grants and income raised through that sponsor stay with them and cannot be transferred to NYFA.
Choose the category that best describes your organization’s main artistic form. If your work crosses several forms, choose Interdisciplinary.
Dance: choreography, dance performance, and dance film where movement is the primary form.
Design: architecture, landscape, graphic, product, and fashion design.
Film and Media Arts: narrative and documentary film, video, animation, radio and podcasts, new media, digital and computer-based art, and virtual or augmented reality.
Folk and Traditional Arts: cultural practices passed down within a community, such as traditional music, dance, crafts, foodways, and storytelling.
Interdisciplinary: work that combines two or more art forms, where no single form is primary.
Literary Arts: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, playwriting for publication, translation, publishing, and book arts.
Music and Opera: composition, recording, live performance, and opera or music theater.
Social Practice: art made with or for a community, where the process, participation, or social change is central to the work.
Theater and Performance: plays, devised theater, musical theater, puppetry, and performance art.
Visual Arts: painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation, and craft.
Arts Education and Service: arts education programs, and services that support artists or arts organizations.
Other: if none of these fit, choose Other and describe your discipline in a few words.
You will only see this question if it applies to your discipline.
Copyright must remain with you throughout the sponsorship period. Afterward, you are free to sell or license the rights, for example to a publisher.
If your organization has already sold or assigned rights to a publisher or third party, please select "I have already sold or assigned rights to this work to a publisher or third party".
Using someone else’s work usually requires permission, called a license. Securing it early avoids delays, extra costs, or having to remove material later. It also helps the panel understand your timeline and budget.
You don’t need every license in place to apply. We ask you to confirm that you understand securing the rights is your responsibility, and that any licensing fees should appear as an expense in your Part 5 budget.
Reviewers want to see how your organization will pay for its work over the next one to three years, and that the plan is realistic.
Include your revenue strategy (how you will raise and earn money), your biggest expenses, and how you plan to grow or maintain operations. Keep it consistent with the fundraising plan and budgets in Part 5.
Reviewers want a clear picture of what you do. Name each program, its format (workshops, performances, exhibitions, screenings), how often it happens, and who it serves.
Separate programs you run now from programs you plan to start, so reviewers can see what already exists.
Reviewers use your timeline to check that your plans are realistic and that you have time to raise funds before programs begin. It should match your fundraising plan in Part 5.
Include programs already underway, programs planned for the coming year, and key dates or milestones. Note which grant deadlines fall before program costs begin.
Participants are the artists, performers, fellows, or other people your organization chooses for its programs. Reviewers want to see that selection is fair, clear, and decided by people who can be held accountable for it.
Include the criteria, the review process, and who makes the final decision.
If your organization does not select participants, write N/A.
Example: "Learn to Play accepts all youth who register, up to 25 per session, on a first come, first served basis. For commissions, a panel of three working composers with no ties to our board reviews anonymous submissions and recommends two. The artistic director makes the final selection from the panel's shortlist, and panelists are paid $300 each."
Definition by Americans for the Arts
Cultural equity embodies the values, policies, and practices that ensure that all people, including but not limited to those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion, are represented in the development of arts policy; the support of artists; the nurturing of accessible, thriving venues for expression; and the fair distribution of programmatic, financial, and informational resources.
This question asks whether people who have been historically underrepresented are included in your work, your decisions, and your resources.
A strong answer describes concrete practices, not general values: who you serve, who makes decisions, how you pay artists, and how you remove barriers such as cost, language, or physical access.