The Foundation believes that art and culture are key to well-being and quality of life for people in the Great Lakes region, helping to create healthy, vibrant, and equitable communities. The Foundation also believes that arts ecosystems should serve the full diversity of the region’s cities and thus focuses on supporting historically underrepresented artists and organizations – including organizations led by and serving communities of color – so that they have resources to build sustainability and thrive.
With a focus on Chicago, the mission of the Culture Program is to support the development, growth, and visibility of underrepresented artists and arts organizations, which may advance racial equity, inspire creativity, and foster more culturally vibrant, diverse, and sustainable communities.
**Please note that because the Foundation is committed to making long-term investments, we award a very limited number of new grants each year.
Creative Organizations & Creative Individuals
Arts organizations and artists are vital to strong communities and contribute to a vibrant arts ecosystem in Chicago and the Great Lakes region. They can act as important community anchors and economic drivers, support diverse artistic expressions and traditions, and nurture the voices, careers, and visibility of artists who have been historically underfunded.
The Culture program aims to support the growth and sustainability of these arts organizations and the artists they present and serve by providing multi-year general operating grants and project grants. Organizations funded by our work demonstrate many of the following characteristics. They:
Our funding also includes professional development grants for artistic residencies, fellowships, awards, and programs supporting early and mid-career underrepresented artists, including artists of color, to advance their careers, strengthen professional networks, and raise visibility for their work. In addition, we provide a limited number of grants to support the development and presentation of new, innovative, and large-scale artistic commissions, exhibitions, and performances, including our annual Joyce Awards.
We’re thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2024 Joyce Awards, marking the 20th anniversary of the Foundation’s annual awards program supporting artists of color in the creation of new works with organizational partners across the Great Lakes region.
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The Joyce Awards, launched in 2004, was the only regional grants program that supported artists of color in major Great Lakes cities. It aimed to inspire creativity, artistic growth, and collaboration in Great Lakes communities.
In its first twenty years, the competition awarded more than $5 million to commission 87 new works created through sustained collaborations between artists of color and leading arts, cultural, and community-based organizations in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Each award has supported an artist or artists in the creation and production of a new work and has provided the commissioning organization with the resources needed to engage their surrounding communities.
Demonstrating the capacity of the arts to inspire and mobilize social change, the Joyce Awards have served as catalysts for artists’ creative practices and have helped foster culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities through the arts.
The Joyce Awards is paused for the 2025 cycle. We will be taking this time to reflect on lessons from the first two decades of the Joyce Awards and changes in the Great Lakes region and the arts before launching the next cycle of the Awards. We look forward to sharing updates about the program in the coming year.
Q&A with 2014 honoree Lynn Nottage, whose Tony-nominated show Clyde's started as a Joyce Awards-winning commission with the Guthrie Theater called Floyd's.
2024 Joyce Awards: La Distancia – an outdoor sculptural installation and immersive gallery exhibition exploring themes of displacement, diasporic identity, and memory through place-based interventions.
2024 Joyce Awards: Hmong Futures – a new theater project illuminating the diverse stories of the Hmong diaspora in Minneapolis-Saint Paul and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of Hmong and Southeast Asian resettlement in the United States.
2024 Joyce Awards: Sounds from the Park – a suite of site-specific musical works composed to illuminate the diverse stories, histories, and cultures of Detroit’s parks and their surrounding neighborhoods.
2024 Joyce Awards: Milo Imagines the World, a new musical adapted from the eponymous children’s book that addresses the impact of incarceration on families while fostering resilience and healing.
