Grants
Terra Foundation Exhibition Grants support organizations in planning and implementing temporary loan exhibitions.
Installation view of Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962. Photo: David Heald. Courtesy Grey Art Museum, New York University
Closed
For exhibitions that open after January 1, 2028:
| Inquiry Due | March 2, 2027 |
|---|---|
| Proposal Due | May 18, 2027 |
| Grant Range | $25K–$200K |
| Grant Decisions | October 2027 |
We encourage exhibitions that broaden understandings of American art at institutions worldwide. We welcome proposals from museums, art centers, and community-based cultural organizations of varying sizes, annual budgets, and diverse geographies, within and outside the United States. This is a highly competitive program.
Exhibitions can offer shared experiences and transformative encounters, leading to new ways of thinking and seeing art and the world. They are designed to be temporary and are often themed—inviting visitors to acknowledge and reflect on the intentions of artists and curators, bringing them into conversation with ideas beyond their own. Loan shows offer expanded access to art and ideas, offering something new to communities of visitors and to histories of art.
If you are seeking support for research and planning related to, and/or for exhibitions drawn primarily from, your organization’s permanent collection, please see our Collections grant program.
Grants will offset planning and/or implementation costs for temporary exhibitions primarily comprising artworks that are not part of the institution’s permanent collection. Funds may be used for costs associated with:
We encourage written materials to be multilingual when possible and relevant to the project and/or its audiences.
We are also happy to support related staff positions (up to 25% of the award amount) and indirect costs (up to 15% of the award amount).
The Terra Foundation supports projects that engage the visual arts of the United States and the Indigenous arts of North America, while questioning and broadening understandings of American art and transforming how its stories are told.
We encourage projects that:
All applicants must hold United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status or its international equivalent.
Only the project organizer(s) may apply for support. If co-organizing with a partner museum, the co-organizers are encouraged to apply jointly. If co-organizers do not apply jointly, we accept only one grant inquiry per project, from whichever organization applies first (even if that letter of inquiry does not get invited to the proposal stage). Grants are not made to individuals.
Some United States-based applicants choose to partner with a fiscal sponsor, an entity with United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status that can receive and manage grant funds on behalf of a project that does not have its own tax-exempt status. We welcome inquiries and applications from fiscally sponsored projects based in the United States. For applicants based outside the United States, the Terra Foundation typically makes grants directly to charitable entities, rather than to fiscal sponsors. For any questions, please contact [email protected].
We do not accept applications for Exhibition Grants from the same institution two consecutive years if a grant has been awarded. For example, if you were awarded an Exhibition Grant in 2023, you can apply for another Exhibition grant to be awarded in 2025. However, if you received a grant for planning only, you may apply for an implementation grant for the same project the following year.
Currently, we do not accept requests for:
Grant Inquiry Form
Use the Apply Now buttons to submit a grant inquiry form by the deadline listed on this page. After reviewing the inquiry, the foundation may invite you to submit a grant proposal.
Grant Proposal
If invited, prospective applicants submit a grant proposal. Formal proposals and all attachments must be written in English. Grant proposals are reviewed by an external panel made up of curators and arts professionals who reflect a diverse range of backgrounds, perspectives, and approaches.
If you have questions about Exhibition Grants, please email Carrie Haslett, Senior Program Director, Exhibition Grants & Initiatives, at [email protected].
Exhibitions can offer shared experiences and transformative encounters, leading to new ways of thinking and seeing art and the world. They are designed to be temporary and are often themed—inviting visitors to acknowledge and reflect on the intentions of artists and curators, bringing them into conversation with ideas beyond their own. Loan shows offer expanded access to art and ideas, offering something new to communities of visitors and to histories of art.
If you are seeking support for research and planning related to, and/or for exhibitions drawn primarily from, your organization’s permanent collection, please see our Collections grant program.
Grants will offset planning and/or implementation costs for temporary exhibitions primarily comprising artworks that are not part of the institution’s permanent collection. Funds may be used for costs associated with:
We encourage written materials to be multilingual when possible and relevant to the project and/or its audiences.
We are also happy to support related staff positions (up to 25% of the award amount) and indirect costs (up to 15% of the award amount).
The Terra Foundation supports projects that engage the visual arts of the United States and the Indigenous arts of North America, while questioning and broadening understandings of American art and transforming how its stories are told.
We encourage projects that:
All applicants must hold United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status or its international equivalent.
Only the project organizer(s) may apply for support. If co-organizing with a partner museum, the co-organizers are encouraged to apply jointly. If co-organizers do not apply jointly, we accept only one grant inquiry per project, from whichever organization applies first (even if that letter of inquiry does not get invited to the proposal stage). Grants are not made to individuals.
Some United States-based applicants choose to partner with a fiscal sponsor, an entity with United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status that can receive and manage grant funds on behalf of a project that does not have its own tax-exempt status. We welcome inquiries and applications from fiscally sponsored projects based in the United States. For applicants based outside the United States, the Terra Foundation typically makes grants directly to charitable entities, rather than to fiscal sponsors. For any questions, please contact [email protected].
We do not accept applications for Exhibition Grants from the same institution two consecutive years if a grant has been awarded. For example, if you were awarded an Exhibition Grant in 2023, you can apply for another Exhibition grant to be awarded in 2025. However, if you received a grant for planning only, you may apply for an implementation grant for the same project the following year.
Currently, we do not accept requests for:
Grant Inquiry Form
Use the Apply Now buttons to submit a grant inquiry form by the deadline listed on this page. After reviewing the inquiry, the foundation may invite you to submit a grant proposal.
Grant Proposal
If invited, prospective applicants submit a grant proposal. Formal proposals and all attachments must be written in English. Grant proposals are reviewed by an external panel made up of curators and arts professionals who reflect a diverse range of backgrounds, perspectives, and approaches.
If you have questions about Exhibition Grants, please email Carrie Haslett, Senior Program Director, Exhibition Grants & Initiatives, at [email protected].
The application process asks applicants to clearly and concisely describe their project’s intended impact and outcomes, as well as how grant funds will supplement existing resources to achieve institutional goals. Please refer to the blank forms provided and reach out with any questions.
For more information on timelines, how to apply, eligibility, and other common questions, please review our Applicant Resources.
Current grantees, please visit Grantee Resources for information about managing a grant, as well as crediting guidelines.
The WAMPUM/OTGÖA exhibition is the culmination of three hundred years of relationship building. This unique and unprecedented collaboration will knit a friendship between peoples and time. Perhaps more importantly, it will pave the way for future collaborations between European and North American Indigenous museums that are mutually beneficial as well as have a great impact on the public.
The project was developed through a collaborative and consultative process that . . . fostered broad-based investment in the project and seeded and strengthened relationships that will continue to grow. A multi-faceted structure of care supported a range of responses elicited from visitors to the exhibition and has been cited as a model by colleagues in the field.
Installation view of Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962. Photo: David Heald. Courtesy Grey Art Museum, New York University
Woven in Wool curatorial team. Seated, left to right: Chepximiya Siyam’ Chief Janice George, Tillie Jones, Buddy Joseph. Standing, left to right: Siseenaxalt Gail White Eagle, Bethany Palkovitz, Katie Bunn-Marcuse, Kelly Robinson, sa’hLa mitSa Susan Pavel, Bridget Johnson, Olive Keilholtz, Michelle Cohen, Roxanne Hockett, Rose Mathison, Ashley Verplank McClelland. Salish blanket of mountain-goat wool in foreground. Burke Museum, Nov. 3, 2023. Photo Credit Burke Museum/Timothy Kenney.
Installation view of the Entangled Pasts, 1768–now. Art, Colonialism and Change at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (3 February–28 April 2024). Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry
Sargent Claude Johnson (installation view). Photo: Sarah M. Golonka. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Installation view, Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, Williams College Museum of Art, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 2024. (Photo: Bradley Wakoff, Courtesy of WCMA)
Installation photography of Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2024; Photos by Albert Ting
Contemporary Ex-Votos installation view, 2024, Gallery 400. Courtesy Natasha Moustache.
View the database to learn more about previous Exhibition projects.
The Stories We Carry, collection reinstallation, Seattle Museum of Art, copyright: Chloe Collyer
“How can we gather now?,” March 31–April 2, 2023, produced by Washington Project for the Arts, co-directed by Asad Raza & Prem Krishnamurthy, symposium attendee Anisa Olufemi asks a question during Stefanie Hessler’s keynote lecture, photo by McKenzie Grant-Gordon courtesy of Washington Project for the Arts.
“Pictures of Belonging” documents the work of three female artists whose careers were deeply affected by prison camps in the United States during World War II.Credit...via Smithsonian American Art Museum; Photo by Albert Ting
Candida Alvarez, Estoy Bien, 2017. Photography by Martin Seck. Image courtesy of the artist and El Museo del Barrio.
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Exhibition Grants