Find answers to frequently asked questions about the Literary Arts Fund, including information on the nonprofit literary arts field, grant opportunities, and contributing to the fund.
Updated December 11, 2025
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the Literary Arts Fund, including information on the nonprofit literary arts field, grant opportunities, and contributing to the fund.
Updated December 11, 2025
The nonprofit literary field comprises hundreds of charitable organizations and publishers that serve writers and readers in ways that are distinct from commercial publishing. These organizations, presses, and publications champion established writers, critical first-time and historically underrepresented authors, and provide a home for the intellectually rigorous and artistically adventurous voices whose work deepens and challenges our culture.
Literary arts nonprofits bring literature to communities nationwide—hosting book festivals and events that connect authors and readers across the country; broaden the reach of writers by publishing works in translation; mentor and encourage authors through retreats and residencies; and celebrate artistic achievement through literary awards and fellowships.
Together, these efforts sustain the vitality and independence of American literature and ensure that a wide spectrum of voices and ideas continues to shape our collective imagination.
The Literary Arts Fund was initiated in 2023 by the Mellon Foundation as a collaborative effort with the Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and an anonymous foundation, each of which made a one-time lead gift to establish the fund.
Over more than two years, these seven foundations have collectively studied articles and research about the nonprofit literary arts field, and met with and heard from writers and leaders in the field. This work has underscored the little funding the nonprofit literary arts field has annually received and has in part informed the priorities and strategies of the Literary Arts Fund.
Literature continues to be the least-funded artistic discipline in the United States, receiving just 1.9% of the $5 billion in grants given to the arts, according to 2023 data collected from Candid, an organization that tracks information about nonprofits. Additional challenges to the literary arts field have included rising operational costs and the ongoing pressures of a shifting publishing and funding landscape.
The Literary Arts Fund aims to dramatically increase financial support for and the visibility of the nonprofit literary arts field toward ensuring a healthy and more robust U.S. literary culture in support of creative writers.
The Literary Arts Fund will award at least $50 million to the nonprofit literary arts field over the next five years (concluding in 2031), aligning with its mission and focusing on areas in which it might have the greatest impact; hold open calls for general operating and innovation project grant applicants; conduct peer-learning sessions with grantees; develop and release field scans and reports on the literary arts field; and continue fostering the development of the Literary Arts Funders Collaborative, an affinity group.
Please sign up for the Literary Arts Fund newsletter or email info@literaryartsfund.org.
To be eligible, applicants must be literary arts nonprofits (including fiscally sponsored literary arts organizations and publishers) based in the U.S. that directly serve creative writers, including organizations that present, publish, and/or otherwise support creative writers’ artistic work, and meet the other eligibility requirements.
Yes. Literary arts organizations and publishers with 501(c)(3) status granted by the IRS, or that are fiscally sponsored by an organization with the same designation, are eligible to apply if they meet the other eligibility requirements.
Yes. In order to apply to an open call for applications, nonprofits must meet each of the eligibility requirements.
The first application window for general operating grants opens November 10, 2025. Literary arts nonprofits eligible to apply for a general operating grant must complete and submit their application online, via Submittable, by December 19, 2025. An open call for applications for innovation project grants is expected to be posted in June 2026 (TBD). Please sign up for the Literary Arts Fund newsletter to stay apprised of open calls and announcements.
No. The Literary Arts Fund only makes grants to nonprofits and does not fund individuals.
Yes. Having received funding from foundations that support the Literary Arts Fund does not disqualify a literary arts nonprofit from applying for a grant from the Literary Arts Fund. Your nonprofit will need to meet all of the Literary Arts Fund’s eligibility requirements.
Creative writers are individual artists who create poems, works of fiction and literary prose (as distinguished from scholarship or journalism), and hybrid works (which blend these genres and which may incorporate an additional element).
Ages 21 and up.
A literary journal or magazine (print, digital, online) publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction (as opposed to scholarship or journalism), or hybrid works (i.e., literary works that blur these genres and may incorporate an additional element). Other characteristics include: having an editorial process, taking submissions, sharing contact information and submissions information on a website, and publishing content that is predominately not by one’s own staff and editors.
To be eligible, nonprofits must have a primary mission of presenting, publishing, and/or otherwise supporting contemporary creative writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or hybrid literary forms, and meet the other eligibility requirements.
If your nonprofit’s activities also include serving artists from other disciplines, but services to creative writers and their artistic work is central to the nonprofit’s mission and activities, it is eligible—again, as long as it meets the other eligibility requirements. However, your application may be less competitive than those nonprofits that focus solely on creative writers.
No. The Literary Arts Fund does not fund theatre or the dramatic arts.
No.
Yes, as long as your nonprofit meets the other eligibility requirements.
Yes, as long as your activities primarily support adult creative writers and meet the other eligibility requirements.
No. Your nonprofit would, however, need to meet the fund’s other eligibility requirements.
No.
Yes.
No.
Literary arts nonprofits applying for a general operating grant need not request an amount. General operating grant awards will range from $37,500 to $500,000 and may be based on the nonprofit’s annual operating budget.
Literary arts nonprofits applying for innovation project grants may request between $25,000 and $100,000 as determined by the project budget. These grant awards may also be informed by the literary arts nonprofit’s annual operating budget(s).
The financial and programming data should be from your most recently completed fiscal year.
Only as part of a collaborative project. A literary arts nonprofit that has received a general operating grant from the Literary Arts Fund will not be eligible to apply independently for an innovation project grant until a year after the general operating grant was awarded.
Yes, if your nonprofit meets the other eligibility requirements. The Literary Arts Fund understands that not all nonprofits use the term “Executive Director” to describe the staff person with equivalent administrative and operational responsibilities.
No, the Executive Director and staff can be full-time, part-time, or volunteer. Please note: your nonprofit will need to meet the other eligibility requirements.
Yes, if each director meets the eligibility requirement of having served in their role for at least twelve consecutive months, and if your nonprofit meets the other eligibility requirements. If your nonprofit has co-directors or a co-leadership model, please list both of their names on the Executive Director line in the application form, and include the length of service for the director that has served in their role for the least amount of time.
Applications will be screened for eligibility by Literary Arts Fund staff; reviewed by a team of readers; and finally assessed by a panel of published creative writers and experts in the literary arts field.
Applicants will be notified about general operating grants by May 30, 2026 and innovation project grants in November 2026 (TBD), via their Submittable account and email. Please sign up for the Literary Arts Fund newsletter to stay apprised of open calls and announcements.
For questions about general operating and innovation project grants, please email grants@literaryartsfund.org. For general inquiries, please email info@literaryartsfund.org.
The Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and an anonymous foundation.
Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Fund of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, Houston Endowment, Jerome Foundation, and McKnight Foundation.
The Literary Arts Fund is grateful for additional contributions from foundations new to the literary arts field in support of its efforts. Please email giving@literaryartsfund.org to learn more.
The Literary Arts Funders Collaborative is a new affinity group that includes foundations contributing to the Literary Arts Fund and those that are interested in literature, reading, and creative writers, and in learning more about the nonprofit field that supports them.
The Literary Arts Funders Collaborative welcomes new members. To inquire, please email LAFC@literaryartsfund.org.