NYFA Source is the most extensive national directory of awards, services, and publications for artists. Listings include over 4,200 arts organizations, 2,900 award programs, 4,200 service programs, and 900 publications for individual artists across the country.
ABOUT NYFA
Mission
The New York Foundation for the Arts’ mission is to empower artists at critical stages in their creative lives.
History
NYFA was established in 1971 by the New York State Council on the Arts as an independent organization to facilitate the development of the individual artist throughout the state. NYFA’s ability to provide Fiscal Sponsorship to individual artists and emerging organizations was established in 1976, and NYFA currently sponsors more than 368 Artists’ Projects and 52 Emerging Organizations, in addition to supporting many others through its core programs.
In 1984, NYFA began overseeing and distributing Artists’ Fellowships along with its public service component, Artists & Audiences. The Fellowship program has since expanded to award direct grants to New York State artists in sixteen disciplines—eight per year on a rotating basis—and has awarded more than $23.9 million to 3,688 artists since the program’s inception. Past recipients include subsequent winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, the Academy Award (Oscar), Guggenheim Fellowships, MacArthur Fellowships, and many other honors. Through NYFA’s grant programs and fiscal sponsorship, more than $6.6 million is now awarded annually to artists and arts organizations.
With its roots beginning in the early 1990s with ArtsWire (www.artswire.org), NYFA online services were launched in November 2002. This web site now serves more than 120,000 unique visitors monthly, with over 3.8 million visitors accessing information in FY2007. NYFA Source, a free, searchable online database of funding and other resources, serves more than 10,000 artists monthly in the visual, performing, media and literary arts nationwide. NYFA Learning also offers professional development opportunities through the Business of Art conferences and Leaders Circles program for arts professionals.
Other highlights from NYFA’s past include its leadership of the New York Arts Recovery Fund, which distributed nearly $5M to 135 organizations and 352 individuals in New York City after September 11, 2001; the development of the Artists in the School Community program; and participation in many important studies by the Urban Institute and other research centers.
Today, NYFA continues its history of serving artists, the arts community, donors, and the broader public, following 36 years of responding to the changing needs of the arts community in New York State. NYFA is proud to provide organizational strength and a record of solid leadership in its many roles as grantor, fiscal sponsor, community leader, and professional resource for the extensive constituency of artists, arts organizations and communities in New York and beyond.
