For Backstreet Community Arts, a nonprofit in Newnan, Georgia, that provides free art workshops and studio access for individuals grappling with trauma, grief, and other mental health struggles, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) helps to fill a gap in community care.
“For many in our community, having no-cost access to creative resources is an essential component of emotional wellness, and for several of our participants, it’s a lifeline,” Anne Wright-Cunniff, office manager and grant writer for Backstreet Community Arts, told Hyperallergic via email. “Mental healthcare is difficult to access in our community.”
The small arts nonprofit was awarded its second $10,000 NEA Challenge America grant in January for the 2025 fiscal year to support art programming for primarily low-income and unhoused individuals with limited access to mental health services.
In February, amid a slew of Trump mandates targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, the NEA cancelled its Challenge America program for at least the 2026 fiscal year. The program, founded in 2001 to designate funds for organizations reaching “underserved communities,” awarded $10,000 grants to small nonprofits and was long seen as an entry point for smaller organizations to receive federal funding.
Under new requirements released last month, applicants must certify that they will not use federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” a move that artists immediately condemned.
Hyperallergic contacted several current and previous Challenge America grant recipients. Leaders of the nonprofits that received the grants said that the cancellation could pit them against larger, better-resourced organizations in the remaining Grants for Arts Projects program and would subject them to stricter entry requirements, including demonstrating five years of prior arts programming, rather than three.
The NEA has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s repeated requests for comment.
Wright-Cunniff said Backstreet Community Arts applied to Challenge America because of the relative simplicity of its application, compared to the Grants for Art Projects. The Challenge America application also offered “enhanced technological assistance resources.”
Because Georgia ranks last in state arts funding per capita, Wright-Cunniff said, options for diversifying funding streams are relatively scarce beyond individual donors and the federal government.
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Robert Kesten, executive director of Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library, told Hyperallergic that the NEA’s decision to fold Challenge America “sends a message to corporate donors that they should reconsider their grantmaking.”
The organization was awarded in 2024 to support exhibitions on LGBTQ+ and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities and hold related public programming. The Challenge America program was more appealing to Kesten because the museum focuses on LGBTQ+ history and culture and not always conventional art.
But now, Kesten says most of the museum’s corporate donors have “vanished.”
“That has been the biggest surprise, just how fast corporate and foundation America has closed its doors and is reducing the size and scope of the public conversation on important issues like freedom, justice, diversity, healthcare, relationships, economics, and just about everything else,” Kesten said.
For the Kids & Art Foundation, a Bay Area-based organization providing arts experiences to pediatric cancer patients, the grant was attractive because it called upon first-time federal funding applicants. The nonprofit was awarded in January to hold healing art workshops in Oakland for children fighting cancer and their families.
“Many of the children in this community live below the poverty line, and social workers we collaborate with have expressed a strong desire — but lack the funds — to provide therapeutic art experiences and other services for these children,” Rachel Handsman, programs director for Kids & Art Foundation said.
Handsman said she was concerned that the absence of Challenge America will restrict funding pathways for organizations serving vulnerable communities.
Sharon Salvador, interim executive director of Newark School of the Arts, said that while Grants for Arts Projects prioritizes the fulfillment of specific initiatives, Challenge America allowed for the investment in “the overall wellness of a community.”
Newark School of the Arts received the grant in 2023 to support creative programming for aging adults to combat memory loss, improve mental health, and promote social engagement. The loss of Challenge America, Salvador said, poses a threat to the well-being of vulnerable communities, including in northern New Jersey.
While the NEA previously told Hyperallergic that the cancellation of Challenge America will only apply to future applicants, uncertainty remains for the 2025 awardees, as the agency implements new compliance requirements.
Latinitas, an Austin-based nonprofit with culturally informed science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) programming for girls, received a 2025 grant from the NEA to support a public mosaic project honoring women of color from East Austin.
“At its core, this project is about representation and resilience — ensuring that amid Austin’s rapid gentrification, residents see themselves reflected in the city’s evolving landscape,” Gabriela Kane Guardia, executive director of Latinitas, said.
On February 27, a Challenge America team member told Guardia in an email that Latinitas’s award was under review to “ensure compliance with federal rules and regulations.”
Dani Parmar, program director for InToto Creative Arts Forum, based in Birmingham, Alabama, however, said the nonprofit signed its award agreement and expects to receive its 2025 Challenge America funding, which would support no-cost interdisciplinary art workshops for individuals experiencing homelessness.
Parmar said that federal funding is crucial in states like Alabama with “scarce” support for the arts, adding that limiting access to the arts perpetuates exclusion.
“We see that exclusion from cultural and educational opportunities actively contributes to a cycle of poverty, isolation, and instability that leads to higher rates of homelessness and worsening mental health,” Parmar said.
For Urban ArtWorks, a Seattle-based nonprofit providing arts-related employment training for young people facing systemic barriers, receiving the Challenge America grant was a pathway to higher NEA awards.
Following its Challenge America grant award in 2023 to fund a mural-apprentice program, the organization has received $40,200 in Grants for Arts Projects since 2024. “[The cancellation] is a step backwards in recognizing that smaller organizations focused on creating arts opportunities for underserved communities have historically had more barriers to accessing federal funding,” Amanda Hashagen, the organization’s executive director, said.