Call for Proposals: Career Opportunity Grants Program 2025 – United States

This program ensures that artists and arts practitioners can benefit from and engage in career-building opportunities as they arise.

Categories

• Opportunities should represent a natural, meaningful step in the applicant’s career, offering potential for significant impact in one or both of the following categories:
  • Introducing work to new audiences: These are opportunities to present the artist’s work in a significant way to new audiences or raise their artistic profile such as exhibitions, performances, or screenings.
  • Examples:
    • You have been invited by a renowned performing arts venue to present your unique choreography, but the stipend is not enough to tailor new costumes associated with the performance.
    • An art museum has offered you your first major solo exhibition, but the high shipping costs make it difficult to proceed.
  • The development of new skills: These are opportunities to develop a new artistic skill or further enhance one’s practice through participation in activities such as conferences, artist residencies, workshops, fellowships, master classes or apprenticeships.
  • Examples:
    • You have been accepted to a month-long residency program, but the perdiem does not include your travel expenses.
    • You have been invited to participate in a week-long a writer’s workshop, but you are responsible for arranging and paying for your own lodging.
    • A traditional artist and culture bearer has invited you to work as an apprentice, but you need childcare support to accept the opportunity.

Funding Information

• Artists may request between $500 and $2,000 depending on the scope and nature of the opportunity.
• Through the Career Opportunity Program, The Ford Family Foundation, in partnership with the Arts Commission, provides up to $9,000 in additional resources for established Oregon visual artists, visual arts writers and curators of visual arts with at least five years of active participation in their field, who have a major career-enhancing opportunity

Eligible Expenses 

• Career Opportunity funding requests must directly align with your opportunity and may be used for any of the following (this list is not comprehensive):
  • Travel associated with the opportunity;
  • Hired professional services to fulfill/engage in the opportunity (such as lighting/sound or costume);
  • Preparation, freight and/or shipping costs;
  • Equipment purchases or materials needed to fulfill/engage in the opportunity;
  • Rental of equipment, instruments, or facility integral to the opportunity;
  • Professional fees needed to fulfill/engage in the opportunity;
  • Registration fees associated with the opportunity;
  • Costs associated with documentation of the opportunity; and/or
  • Childcare costs that are necessary for you to take advantage of the opportunity

Ineligible Expenses

• Career Opportunity funds may not be used for:
  • Opportunities that take place outside the activity dates;
  • Reimbursement of expenses paid outside the activity dates;
  • The applicant’s own artistic fees, wages, or stipends;
  • The applicant’s general business or studio operations, including ongoing studio or space rental;
  • Equipment not related to the opportunity;
  • Opportunities related to academic research or formal study toward an academic or professional degree, such as capstone projects; and/or
  • Costs for nonrefundable travel expenses which are cancelled or postponed beyond the funding period end date.

Eligibility Criteria

• At the time of the application deadline, all applicants must meet the following:
  • Be 18 years of age or older;
  • Have not received funding from the Career Opportunity Program in the past three (3) cycles (calculated from application deadline month to application deadline month);
  • Have been domiciled in Oregon for at least 12 months prior to application deadline;
  • Not be enrolled (either part- or full-time) in a degree-granting program; and
  • Submit an individual application.

Review Criteria

• The following review criteria will be used to evaluate applications (0 is the lowest score):
  • Career Impact (0 to 45 points):
    • Clear description of opportunity;
    • Timeliness of opportunity (in terms of needing to take advantage now); o Quality of proposed opportunity; and
    • Appropriateness of opportunity in relation to the artist’s career goals.
  • Artistic Merit (0 to 45 points):
    • Artistic quality as demonstrated by work samples provided; and
    • Qualifications, background, and experience of the artist as demonstrated through the resume, work samples and other support material.
  • Budget (0 to 10 points):
    • Appropriateness of the budget for activities associated with the opportunity; and
    • Accuracy and clarity of budget.

For more information, visit Oregon Arts Commission.