The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts will expand its giving by adding a new grant program that will support visual arts projects at US-based nonprofits with budgets under $200,000.
Prior to this change, the Warhol Foundation’s funding has focused on nonprofit visual arts organizations with budgets of $300,000 or more. This new program, which will give grants between $20,000 and $30,000, will begin accepting applications for the foundation’s upcoming round of Spring 2026 grants, which has a deadline of March 1.
The catalyst for this change in its funding rules was the recent cancelation of the National Endowment for the Art’s Challenge America grants, which gave $10,000 grants to organizations in underserved communities across the US. The Warhol Foundation partnered with the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation to fund the visual arts–focused nonprofits that were part of those canceled grants, providing $800,000 in funds to 80 organizations.
“At that moment, we were looking for a way to act in the face of what’s only continued to be a paralyzing onslaught of too much chaotic cuts and disruptions to funding of culture,” said Rachel Bers, the program director for the Warhol Foundation’s grant programs. “The Challenge America grants gave us this awareness of all these organizations that we hadn’t funded before, and that were hanging on by a thread with removal of federal funds.”
She added, “What we learned from that was the profound impact that filling in those grants had on the organizations—of knowing that somebody out there was paying attention to their work that valued it enough to come in and support when the funds had been taken away.”
Similarly, the Warhol Foundation also saw an increase by nearly 40 percent in the number of applications it received for its Fall 2025 grant cycle, which ultimately saw more than $4 million in funds go to 57 organizations, about 20 percent more nonprofits than it typically funds in one cycle. Bers has worked for the Warhol Foundation for 20 years and she said that during that period the number of applications it receives per cycle “has been more or less stable that whole time—the graph hugely spikes in the past year.”
Bers said that the Warhol Foundation has wanted to “keep that momentum going ever since,” and that funding small organizations, like those with budgets under $200,000, has long been “this missing piece” in the foundation’s funding that it has been looking to address for several years.
One way it has funded smaller organizations is through its Regional Regranting Program, which was established in 2007 and is currently active in 39 cities and regions and provides funds to partner organizations in those areas that are then regranted to artist-initiated projects via the partner organization’s own grant programs.
A challenge for the Warhol Foundation, though, has been how to do that with the resources the foundation currently has, which consists of four people working on foundation’s granting activities. (The foundation is not adding staff for what it expects to be an influx in the number of applications it will receive.)
“It’s always been the foundation’s goal to support the full range of artistic activity in the country, from major exhibitions at institutions to community-centered projects,” she said. “There’s clearly a need across the spectrum, so what we’re trying to do is increase support for all of our programs, and at the same time, create this new area so that we’re not increasing and still leaving the gap that’s always been there.”
Bers said that despite the efforts of a well-moneyed foundation like the Warhol, there is no way that they could ever meet the increased need from cultural organizations in this current moment but that the expansion of its grant-giving is meant to “visibly give a sign that this is a time to step forward and step up to support artists and arts organizations.”
She added, “It’s so important now to signal to everyone that in this time of total instability and chaos, what people need is more funding than ever to support the work of artists who like all of us are feeling threatened by the current environment. They need to be supported, to continue to do their work, to continue to present their perspectives and their ideas to the world through the platforms that are these organizations.”
