Five Unrestricted Grants This Month

A lot of grants require exhaustive detail regarding what the money will become (line items, timelines, deliverables). Some are reimbursement-only, so the artist incurs costs up front. So there’s something countercultural about the unrestricted grant, which requires your vision, merit, and integrity, but no performance of certainity in terms of exactly how things are going to pan out. These grants arrive in the form of a check. They say, in effect, we trust your judgment. That trust shows up more often than you’d think, if you know where to look.

Here are five more from this month’s list.

Midwest Culture Bearers Award — Eighteen mid-career and established Midwestern cultural practitioners receive substantial unrestricted grants each year — a regional prize built on the premise that the Midwest doesn’t need to be a farm system for the coasts to be worth funding.
Deadline: August 18, 2026

Liu Shiming Artist Grants — Up to five artists in the first decade of their careers receive $5,000 each, no project proposal required, just work exploring the relationship between tradition and contemporary practice.
Deadline: August 31, 2026

James Renwick Alliance for Craft – Chrysalis Award — $5,000, unrestricted, for an emerging ceramic artist, plus a year of membership and a chance to present at a JRACraft event.
Deadline: August 23, 2026

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation — Writing Fellowships of approximately $65,000 each are given annually to mid-career poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers on the basis of “exceptional creative ability.”
Deadline: September 15, 2026

2026 Foundwork Artist Prize — The top honoree receives a $10,000 grant and studio visits with a jury that includes curators from major international institutions; three shortlisted artists receive $1,000 each. No proposal required.
Deadline: September 25, 2026

There are more like these tucked into the full August list, and the next installment of Extra! Extra! Paid subscribers get the complete twice-monthly roundup.