Grant Funding for Arts & Cultural Programming

2023-2024 Program Grants from Lakeland Mayor’s Council on the Arts

2023-2024 LMCA Grant Guidelines for Download and Previewing

Application Deadline: October 5, 2023

Award announcement anticipated on October 12, 2023

Purpose of the Annual Grant Program

To support general program activities of an organization that is realizing its stated mission and furthering Lakeland’s cultural brand conducting, creating, producing, presenting, staging, or sponsoring cultural exhibits, performances, educational programs, or events.

Requirements to Apply

Arts organizations must meet eligibility requirements including:

• Must be a Lakeland-based art-centric 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
• Must have three years of valid operating experience.
• To request more than $5,000 have at least one completed grant from LMCA.
• To request more than $25,000
• Completed at least 3 years of programming
• Employ at least one paid, full-time staff member in a management position

Grant Awards:

Eligible organizations may request up to 5% of their prior year’s operating expenses.

Grant applications are scored and ranked by a panel of judges. The total application score multiplied by the total request amount is the organization’s eligible grant award. Please refer to the LMCA 2023-2024 Grant Scoring Matrix. Only applications with a score of 70 or above will be eligible for funding.

For example, if XYZ Organization scored 89% and requested $10,000, their eligible grant award is $8,900. If the total score-adjusted request amount for all eligible applications exceeds the amount allocated by the City Commission, the award amounts will be reduced in equal percentages.

New this year, all organizations who receive an award will be required to fill out a post-event/season report. Organizations who do not return the report to the Council before September 1, 2024, will not be eligible to receive funding the following fiscal year. The final report form will be included in award notices.

Questions regarding the grant program should be directed to Kerry Falwell, Chair of Lakeland Mayor’s Council on the Arts at info@lkldarts.org.

Fill out the Form to Apply – You cannot save the application before submitting. Applicants are strongly encouraged to prepare the narrative in a Word document then copy and paste into the form.