Chicago artist grants are a lifeline. Will funding continue?

Tonika Lewis Johnson is synonymous with big, bold art projects that inspire fresh, critical thinking about Chicago and its history.

The social justice-oriented artist rose to acclaim with her Folded Map Project, which compared corresponding addresses on the North and South sides to highlight the city’s deep-rooted segregation.

Local artists like Johnson have, in recent years, benefited from a grant program run by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Events (DCASE) that gives money directly to individual artists, performers and filmmakers.

This year, that grantmaking is under close scrutiny as COVID-19 relief monies dry up, philanthropic support for the arts shifts and the level of federal arts funding becomes a glaring question mark during a second Donald Trump presidency. During his first term, Trump became the first president of either party to propose defunding the National Endowment for the Arts — an effort that ultimately failed.

Chicago, meanwhile, is accepting a new round of applications for its direct-to-artist grant program until Jan. 15. Advocates and artists alike say this program is a steadying force in an arts economy in major flux. And while the cultural affairs department has pledged to keep it, officials won't say how much funding will be available to the program this year.

Work like Johnson’s reverberates well beyond city limits — it’s the type of artistic output that makes Chicagoans puff out their chest with pride. It inspires city proclamations that this is a great place for artists to live and work.

But Johnson’s art is also expensive to make. Projects like hers require ongoing, sustained investments from both municipal and private funders, she said recently.

“It is not lost on me that my trajectory as an artist, creating these projects that have gained significant interest and impact in helping people understand large systemic issues, were funded by grant opportunities,” Johnson said. She has recently been spearheading an ambitious effort called UnBlocked Englewood that seeks to rehab an entire block in her home neighborhood, which was harmed by predatory, racist housing practices of the 1950s and ’60s.

“For me, I can say that my artistic career has essentially been influenced and flourished by the access to these new artist grants that the city provided.”

Many in Chicago’s arts sector praise a shift toward individual artist grants that close observers say former DCASE Commissioner Erin Harkey championed. When Mayor Brandon Johnson fired Harkey last February and replaced her with his own pick for DCASE commissioner, Clinée Hedspeth, advocates were clear: No matter who is at the helm of the department, they want the grants programs to continue.

At a budget hearing in the fall, a DCASE official said the department hopes “to maintain our number of grants that we’ve had for the past couple of years and not take a decrease.”

But it’s a tough moment, both nationally and here in Chicago, where Mayor Johnson weathered a combative budget cycle and Hedspeth’s cultural affairs department has been roiled by turnover. As artists submit their applications for what has increasingly become a competitive funding source, the question looms: How much is Chicago investing in its artists?

A coveted local prize

The department’s move toward getting money directly into artists’ hands is aligned with a broader nationwide trend. According to figures from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, individual artist grants given by state arts agencies more than tripled between 2012 and 2021.

Chicago awards grants to both individuals and organizations through a number of programs, but in recent years, the Individual Artists Program has garnered a lot of buzz — and become highly coveted.

“IAP has grown to be among our most competitive programs,” DCASE’s Melanie Wang told prospective applicants in a December online information session, citing odds of a successful application at about 15% to 20% of those submitted annually.

That translated in 2024 to 200 grantees sharing a pot of slightly more than $1 million, a considerable increase from the $496,300 awarded through the same initiative in 2019.

The department declined to make any official available for an interview. But a DCASE spokesperson said in an email that, overall, the department will award $9.3 million in grants in 2025. She added that that money “includes an emphasis on increased direct-to-artist funding” but would not say how much of those funds will go to the IAP. It’s a fraction of the department’s overall budget: When DCASE's spending plan for 2025 passed in December, it stood at $73 million, an 11% increase from what it spent in 2024.

Officials have said they prioritize projects created by residents of under-resourced communities.

WBEZ analyzed the recipients of Individual Artists Program grants from 2019 to 2024 by ZIP code. The data, obtained through a public records request, showed that majority-Black ZIP codes saw a growth in grant dollars from the program each year from 2020 to 2023, but that growth was not sustained in 2024.

The analysis also showed that seven of the top eight ZIP codes for direct-to-artist grantmaking were on the North Side, with one exception: the ZIP code that includes most of Pilsen, which was the second highest. Fewer than 10% of IAP grant dollars were awarded to artists living in majority-Latino ZIP codes.

DCASE said in an emailed statement that Latino representation is an area of focus, including by offering application assistance sessions in Spanish.

The department also said that it prioritizes applicants’ self-reported demographic data, in addition to home ZIP codes, and that nearly two-thirds of IAP 2024 recipients are people of color.

The Individual Artists Program has prevailed, in part because a portion is funded by the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. From 2020 through 2024, DCASE received slightly more than $1 million from the NEA for regranting and other programs.

Capped at $6,000 a person, Chicago’s direct-to-artist grants aren’t a ton of money, but they can make a difference. Anders Zanichkowsky, a Chicago artist who weaves burial blankets, received the maximum funding through the program in 2023. Zanichkowsky said the funds helped pay for a home studio equipment upgrade and a new line of ready-made blankets. “It’s a substantial amount of money,” said Zanichkowsky, who later also served as a panelist reviewing grant applications.

“For people who are not artists, they might think $6,000 is a lot, and in some ways, it is. But in the grand scheme of things, we need so much more,” Zanichkowsky said. “We should be proud that there is this grant, and also, we could double it for everyone and it still wouldn’t cover the need.”

For other recipients, like Ben Kinsinger — a musician who performs under the name Lawrence Tome — the money feels like a validation of creative pursuits. Kinsinger has been programming “secret” shows held on a concrete island in the Chicago River near Avondale. He received $5,000 from DCASE last year for a proposal to host a musical parade on the river.

Statewide, Illinois is making more dollars available to artists too. Joshua Davis-Ruperto, the executive director of the Illinois Arts Council, said the agency’s budget for its individual grant programs grew by about $1.5 million in fiscal year 2025 compared to the previous year. That shift was intentional — and a response to what creatives said they wanted in a statewide listening tour by the council.

“When talking to a lot of individual artists, one of the things that I found was that they were getting money for projects, but the problem was they weren’t able to pay their light bills,” Davis-Ruperto said. “And so, we started thinking about what would general operating support look like for these individuals? Looking at them as entrepreneurs and small businesses.”

The state launched the Creative Accelerator Fund to give $10,000 in general operating support to individuals. Last year, Davis-Ruperto said the state received more than 1,000 applications for 130 available grants.

Questions about the next four years

Grant dollars can be crucial for artists, but they aren’t a magic bullet — and they often come with bureaucratic hoops.

Applications can be lengthy and cumbersome and require extensive reporting. Applicants for city funds disclose outstanding city debt, and before receiving grant funds, they must either pay down or get on a payment plan for outstanding city fees, things like parking tickets or water bills.

Johnson said such requirements can be a big roadblock for some artists, especially as ticket debt disproportionately affects predominantly Black neighborhoods. These hurdles are something she and Janell Nelson, a co-founder of the Englewood Arts Collective, often talk about.

“When other artists want to pursue some of the grants that we have had the opportunity to receive, we have to explicitly advise them about the responsibility and the brutal process of the paperwork,” Johnson said. “You have to weigh the benefit for you of going through this process.”

Johnson said that, at a minimum, she wants to see the city continue awarding grants at the level that’s been established in the last five years.

“Even if it's a continuation that stayed at that specific level for years,” she said. “I would say, try to find a way to support artists in this city to the level that the [American Rescue Plan Act] funding allowed to happen.”

WBEZ asked DCASE’s Hedspeth about how big of a priority the department’s grantmaking efforts are to her as commissioner. In an email, a spokesperson said, “grantmaking along with all our efforts across arts and culture in Chicago remains critically important.”

Last fall, Hedspeth told the Chicago Defender that it is “foundational” for her to “have a significant increase financially for artists who can come directly to the city and get funding.”

“What I can say, and what we do know, is that artists themselves are often jumping through hoops to get the simplest kind of support,” Hedspeth told the publication.

Nelson, of the Englewood Arts Collective, said what the city does in the next few years to stabilize the field will be crucial: “I think looking to the next four years, how the arts and artists will be appreciated or not, invested in or not, will be very telling.”

WBEZ’s Alden Loury contributed data analysis.