Core Criteria:

• Project impact and public benefit: art is the primary component of your project. The project includes a public event for King County residents and visitors to enjoy, experience, or benefit from the art or artmaking. The project makes clear efforts to be accessible to many ages, disabilities, languages, and communities.
• Quality and qualifications: your work samples and experience show an ability to successfully complete the project. If applying as a group, the lead or partnering artists have the relevant experience to achieve the project.
• Feasibility: your project budget and plan are realistic and achievable. The requested funding amount is appropriate for the project.
• Advancing equity: 4Culture’s mission focuses on racial equity and envisions a county where culture is essential and accessible to all. Your project specifically benefits communities of color and/or historically marginalized communities. The project serves or collaborates with members of these communities This is not an eligibility requirement, but it is one of factors the panel will consider.

Choice Criteria:

You must select ONE of the following that best describes your project’s goal and impact:

• Continuity: your project continues a long-term artistic practice or tradition and demonstrates value in sustaining or repeating this work.

Examples:

• • John Feodorov presented a solo exhibition at Gallery 4Culture of new and recent work that questioned the ways colonization shapes identity.
  • Folklore Mexicano Tonantzin WA continued the living tradition of Mexican folkloric dance with a public performance.

• Growth: your project expands your practice, medium, or artwork in new directions, and shows artistic development.

Examples:

• • Jess X Snow wrote and directed Roots that Reach Toward the Sky, a 16mm short narrative drama about how two generations of queer Asian Americans grieve and heal each other through traditional medicine and love.

  • Seattle Trans and Nonbinary Choral Ensemble produced their first ever concert for Transgender Day of Remembrance.

• Engagement: your project focuses on participation, arts education, or collaboration beyond a presentation. The project intentionally engages or collaborates with specific communities based on their interests and needs.

Examples:

• • Sarah Bassingthwaighte presented Flute Premiers in the Parks, a series of flute choir performances in public parks with new works commissioned and created by young composers.
  • Blue Cone Studio hosted CommuniTEAs, a weekly series of drop-in workshops for a wide range of skills and artforms.

• Individuals must be at least 18 years old and a resident of King County when you apply through completion of your project.
• If selected for an award, you must provide a Social Security Number to receive payment. No fiscal sponsors may be used.
• 4Culture staff, Board, Arts Advisory Committee members, and 2025 Art Projects selection panelists are not eligible to apply.

• Groups must be based in King County with a core mission dedicated to the arts. If your group is not arts-focused, you must have a formal partnership with an artist or art group.
• If selected for an award, you must provide an Employer Identification Number to receive payment (sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp, General Partnership, nonprofit, etc.). Social Security Numbers will not be accepted.
• Fiscally sponsored groups are eligible.
• Your group does not need to be a nonprofit.
• Organizations with a current contract for 4Culture’s Arts Sustained Support or Creative Consultancy programs are not eligible to apply.

• Applicants with incomplete contracts for past 4Culture’s Art Projects grants are not eligible.
• Multiple applicants may not apply for the same project.
• You may not apply on behalf of a current recipient of 4Culture’s Arts Sustained Support.
• Projects working in multiple disciplines – arts, heritage, and preservation – may be eligible for more than one 4Culture Projects grant. Please contact the program managers before applying to multiple Project grants.

• Your project creates art of any discipline that offers an opportunity for our King County communities to experience or participate in your project. Projects can include readings, screenings, exhibitions, performances, festivals, workshops, collaborative artmaking, residencies, conferences, discussions, and more. Projects can be the creation of new work or the interpretation of existing work.
• Your project, or a phase of a larger project, must take place between July 1, 2025—July 1, 2027.
• You may request funding for $2,500, $5,000, $7,500, $10,000, $12,500, or $15,000.

• Projects produced or funded by a 4Culture Sustained Support organization
• Food and beverage
• Purchase of equipment
• Murals and permanent public art
• Religious worship, exercise, or instruction
• K-12 schools or school districts
• Tuition and cost-of-living expenses for students in any degree program
• Fundraising expenses
• General operating support
• Capital construction

Worksheet

Click to download the 2025 worksheet: Individuals | Groups

This worksheet includes the full application with helpful tips. Use this to work offline, draft your responses, and then copy-and-paste them into the online application.

Sample Application

Here are samples of Individual and Group applications that received funding. You can also view last year’s Individual and Group grant recipients on our Awardees page.

Demographic Information

Your profile in our application portal must provide demographic information for the current year for yourself (for individuals), or your board and staff (for groups). We use this information to help us understand how well we are doing in our efforts to reach all communities in King County. All information will be kept confidential and will not be used in funding decisions.

Project Budget

Use the budget form to share the planned expenses and revenues for the project. In the notes section, provide more detail on each category and how you would use the grant funds. The total expenses and revenues must match, including in-kind expenses and revenues. Please refer to “What Art Projects Funds” section above for eligible of 4Culture funding.

Venue

Complete this section if you know the name and address of the project’s venue or location. If you do not yet have a venue, please skip down to Project Venue Notes, and share the type of venue you would like to use and why. If you are planning to use more than one venue, indicate that in the Project Venue Notes as well.

Work Samples

You must submit samples of past work that best demonstrate your qualifications for your project. We recommend prioritizing your work samples by selecting the most relevant to your proposed project—in scope, scale, complexity, or subject matter.

Eligible work samples include images, text documents, videos, and audio in the following formats:

• File Attachments (images and documents): JPEG, PDF, or Word Document under 2MB each
• Links (video and audio): YouTube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud – links must be public or unlisted (no password)

Work samples must be under 5 minutes or 5 pages total. For longer work samples, please note what section should be reviewed in the Work Sample Description.

To resize files to under 2MB, you can use free websites like Image Resizer and PDF Resizer.

The following formats are not accepted and will not be reviewed:

• Links to social media, cloud storage, film databases, resume/CV websites, or links requiring passwords.
• Attachments over 2MB each.
• Full resumes.

Work Sample Description

Please prepare the following information for all work samples:

• Titles of the work samples in the order in which they are to be reviewed.
• Date the works were completed or if they are in-progress.
• Your role (e.g. “I was the choreographer and director of this project.”).

Documents: note if the samples are complete works, abstracts, excerpts, or a collection.

Images: share the medium, dimensions, and image credits.

You may elect to write a few brief sentences about each work sample.