Artist Entrepreneurial Grants

Grants for individual artists

Quarterly Deadlines: April 25, August 1 and October 31, 2025, and February 6, 2026

Match is not required for FY26 grant applications.

Artist Entrepreneurial Grants recognize the importance of the creative workforce to New Hampshire’s economy. Artist Entrepreneurial Grants support opportunities that will benefit artists’ careers, including the development of business skills, participation in programs to raise the level and quality of their art, and participation in programs that will bring their art to the widest possible markets.

How to Apply

Download the Grant Guidelines
Download the Budget Form
Download the Budget Form as a PDF
How to Fill Out the Online Application

Start the Online Application

Online Application System Instructional Video (AEG)

Length: 8:05 | Transcript: Online Application System Instructional Video (AEG)

Online Application System Instructional Video (AEG)

Transcript: Online Application System Instructional Video (AEG)

Online Application System Instructional Video (AEG)

Transcript of video:

This tutorial will take you through the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts fiscal year 2024 artist entrepreneurial grant program application at submittable.com. The tutorial assumes that you have created a free account at submittable.com and are logged into the system.

The first section is all about you: we want to know your legal name- this is the name you use on your tax returns, your email address, your snail mail address, daytime telephone number, your website URL, and we want to know the primary discipline of your work and so there's a nice very comprehensive list here to choose from. We want to know your primary discipline. We report this information to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, so it's very, very important. If you have questions about the codes, contact the administrator of this grant program. We also want to know what stage your career is in, and your race and your gender identity. If you don't want to answer the race and gender identity questions just type n/a into the box.

The second part of the application is the grant request and the first part is you're going to describe your opportunity in 50 words or less. So this is a summary of the opportunity, or a quick title- be concise and clear here. Next we want to know how much you're asking for, when do the opportunity starts and when it ends, and remember this is based on the calendar of deadlines for this program, so make sure that you're very, very clear about when this opportunity is occurring. It cannot occur before the deadline for which you're applying. You're also going to choose an Arts discipline code for the primary area of the opportunity. We know lots of artists work across disciplines, and so your opportunity discipline may be different than your primary discipline, and that's okay. If the opportunity includes a public component, you will fill out section three; and not every opportunity has a public component, like a performance or an exhibition, and that's okay too. So if your opportunity does have a public component, we want to know when the events associated with it will occur, how many towns or communities will benefit, how many youth and how many adults will be engaged in the public component through live in-person arts experiences. So if that public component includes some kind of remote accessibility or access to, let's say, a recording of the live experience, you can't count the people who would access it that way. You can only count people who will be experiencing the opportunity, the public component, in an in-person live experience.

Then we'll want some demographic information about the people who will benefit from this public component: first by age, then by ethnicity, and then some distinct groups. We also want to know how many artists will be directly involved in the public component and how many are from New Hampshire. And finally, about the public component, it must be presented in a venue that's accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. So when you check the yes box, that acknowledges that you will be doing this in an ADA accessible venue. In section 4 you're going to upload the required documentation for your opportunity.

This section works just like attaching a file to an email or uploading a photo to Instagram. You're going to click choose file- a window will open on your computer, from which you can navigate to the place on your computer where you've already saved all of these documents. You'll choose the document that you need, and attach it to the application. So the first one is the narrative questions, and the narrative questions are at the end of the guidelines for this grant program. Next is the budget form, and next is the opportunity documentation, and so this might be an acceptance acknowledgment, a scholarship notification letter, an invitation letter for your opportunity, but we absolutely require documentation of the opportunity.

Your summary resume- your summary resume should be no longer than two typed pages; the shorter the better. And then any work files, work samples, that you want to upload. We prefer that you link to your work samples in your narrative but if you don't, you can upload 10 files here. We prefer that they be zipped up, and there's a link that you can click here if you don't know how to zip up files to get some information on how to do that. If you're going to be hiring somebody to do some work for you, like build a website or an e-commerce site, or do marketing materials, or something like that, we need the price quote from the contractor and their work samples, and those can be uploaded here, in letter F. Number five is only for full-time college or university faculty, and by checking the agree box, you certify that the opportunity for which you're applying is not eligible for professional development funding from your institution. And then number six is your certification. This is your electronic signature, so you would click the agree button and then type your name in the box. Before I go on to the submission of this, I want to say something about the files that you will be uploading in this section. I think it's really important to know that we prefer files in PDF format. Particularly anything that's text based or an Excel file. This way, if they're in PDF format, there's no way that we can accidentally edit your files, so try to get everything into PDF format.

is a video about the budget form on the grant web page and it will show you how to save that Excel form in PDF format. So, you've got everything attached, you've answered all the questions, now you're going to click submit form. Hopefully you've done everything right, you click the submit button, and the system will give you an acknowledgment on your screen that your application has been submitted. If you get a message that your application can't be submitted, that is probably because you haven't completed a required field. Anything with an asterisk next to it is required, so you'll probably have to scroll up and see what you missed.

So, that is the fiscal year 2024 artist entrepreneurial grant application. Please let us know if you have questions, and we look forward to seeing your applications this year.

Budget Form Instructional Video (AEG)

Length: 5:55 | Transcript: Budget Form Instructional Video (AEG)

Budget Form Instructional Video (AEG)

Transcript: Budget Form Instructional Video (AEG)

Budget Form Instructional Video (AEG)

Transcript of video:

This tutorial will walk you through the budget form for the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts artist entrepreneurial grant program. Right up at the top is some basic information about the program. The range that you can ask for in this program is from $250 to $1,000, and you have to match dollar for dollar, whatever you ask us for. That's a very, very important part of this. Your budget absolutely must be balanced, your project income and your expenses must match. And please, when you're filling out this form, don't use dollar signs, commas, or periods. There are formulas into the form and using those symbols will negatively affect those formulas.

So coming right into the application, you're going to type in your name- this is the same name that you used on the submittable application, and then you're going to list your income. And so we start with the grant request- how much you're asking us for. And so you will type that in- let's say you're asking for $800- you'll type it in and use the tab key, and you can see now that the dollar amount is formatted properly. If you have any corporate sponsorships or private foundation grants to help with this project, you want to identify where that money is coming from and how much.

Any other support that you're receiving, like a scholarship from your opportunity, you would identify it, and then add it here. Any other government support that you're receiving, you would identify where it's coming from, and how much, and then, any cash that you are putting on the table to help match what you're asking for from us. Remember, you have to match dollar for dollar, so if you are asking for $800, you have to kick in another 800, and there's your total project income.

You have to match what you're asking us for. On the expense side, the columns look a little bit different because we want you to tell us how you're going to use the grant money that you receive. So you're going to tell us on each of these items, the amount of money from the grant that it will cover, if you're going to use the grant money for these things, and the amount that other income will cover; that's very important. And these things will add across and they will add down.

So once again, your project expenses must total the income, and so it could be very helpful as you are thinking about your project, to work on your expenses first, and see what that total comes to. That might help you decide how much you're going to ask for from us. These things are pretty standard- supplies and materials, any registration or entry fees, any services, any contracted services, so for instance, if you are going to hire somebody to make you a website, that's a contracted service and you would list those things.

Any equipment, printing, space rental, any travel, any marketing or publicity that you would be doing for yourself, and any remaining project expenses- and here you would type in what those expenses are. If you need to add rows to the form you should be able to do that and not have too much difficulty, but you want to double check and make sure that the formulas haven't been disrupted. If you're concerned about adding extra rows, please contact the grant coordinator- that person will be able to help you with the budget form.

So once again, it's very important that your total project expenses and your total project income match. How you make that match is your particular challenge, but there are a lot of different ways that that can happen. Again, reach out to us too, if you have questions about that as well.

Finally, there is a fillable PDF version of this form, but it doesn't include the formulas, so you would have to do the math yourself. We do prefer that you use the Excel form. If you want to save the Excel form as a PDF once you've filled it out, which we really like you to do, please use the print dialog, the PDF dialog, in your print dialog. Sometimes just saving as a PDF will result in a blank form, so please use the printer dialog to save your document as a PDF, if you're going to do that.

Again, if you have questions, please reach out and ask them. Thanks so much.