Emergency Relief Grants

While we acknowledge that there are varying ways that organizations, collectives and artists define, endorse, or acknowledge craft in various ways, for the purpose of this grant program, we define eligibility in the following ways:

This grant program supports individual craft artists who make original three-dimensional visual art objects by hand, including folk and traditional art forms. We prioritize craft artists who have demonstrated recent artistic practice. Applicants must create the majority of their artworks themselves, though they can incorporate store-bought elements. To be eligible for support, we
look for craft object-making to be a primary, meaningful and/or substantive part of your current
practice.

We do not support art practices that include hate speech or symbols.

Materials: We welcome handmade art made from clay, glass, textiles/fiber, wood, metal, concrete, plastic, gourds, shells, bones, leather, recycled materials and many other materials to create three-dimensional craft art. We look for objects in which the artist transformed the materials into something new.

Forms: Craft forms we support are handmade jewelry, vessels, dishes, sculptures, chairs, purses, hats, masks, garments, quilts, baskets, embroidery, musical instruments, beadwork, regalia or ceremonial clothing, printmaking such as etching or woodcut, papier-mâché, mask making, knitting/crochet, dolls, bookmaking, blacksmithing, and knife making.

Function: Visual craft objects can be functional or nonfunctional.

Identity: While we use the term “craft artist” to encompass the practice we strive to support, we also welcome self-identification. Some applicants call themselves craft artists, and many others may self-identify as a maker, folk artist, cultural bearer, potter, ceramicist, mixed media artist, etc. We welcome all identities of craft artists to apply.

Notes about specific art types and practices:

• Jewelry: Includes wearable items that are primarily handmade from scratch or using primarily raw materials.
• Beadwork: Includes bead stringing, bead weaving, bead looming, bead embroidery, and wire wrapping with beads. This would also include using beads to create jewelry, weavings, and as surface decoration on clothing, sculptures, masks, and other three-dimensional objects.
• Musical Instruments/Puppet Making: Performing artists who also make musical instruments or puppets may be eligible if making these objects is a primary part of their practice, and those objects meet CERF+’s other criteria for craft objects.
• Fashion/Clothing: Garments of original design that are handmade by the designer or their immediate, local family or circle are often eligible. Clothing-making that involves a great deal of hand embellishment, hand-weaving, unusual cuts, or that preserves a specific cultural tradition tied to cultural bearers typically falls into this category.
• Printmaking: We have supported artists who primarily work in handmade printmaking techniques. These include using relief processes (such as woodcut and linoleum blocks), intaglio (etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint, and mezzotint), and traditional lithography (such as using a stone, metal plate, or polymer plate that is hand-inked for printing). In certain cases, silk screening may also be considered an eligible art form, provided documentation shows the handwork involved in the making process.
• Multi-disciplinary or Mixed mediums: We recognize that artists may have multiple artistic practices and often move in various spaces and work with different mediums. To be eligible for support, we look for craft object-making to be a primary, meaningful and/or substantive part of your current practice.
• Shared Practices: For artists that work in a shared practice, such as a collective or a partnership, we will consider your practice as eligible if the overall work is focused in a craft medium as described above. Please explain your individual role in the shared practice and highlight objects that especially exhibit your part of the work in your application. If your shared artistic practice experienced an emergency, please submit one application per craft artist.

Our program looks for active and recent engagement or participation in the craft community and/or in the local community. This can include participating in or hosting/leading exhibitions, public cultural events, fairs, or craft shows but can also be:

• Articles, interviews, reviews, or features about the artist in written, video, or audio journalism
• Craft show or gallery representation of the artist on a website, brochure, or catalog
• Participating in an organization, group, shared studio, or residency
• Publications about the artist
• Recognition, awards, and honors
• Online presence
  • Your own artistic website
  • Being featured on another professional website such as a museum shop
  • Social media presence that focuses on your art work, making or practice
  • E-commerce
• Analog or Digital Documentation
  • Articles or journalism about you and your work
  • Brochures, Fliers, Posters, or other Documents from artistic and cultural events

We define an eligible emergency/disaster as an event or circumstance that is unforeseeable, unexpected, outside your control and has a recent and substantially disruptive effect on the applicant’s craft practice/livelihood.

Disaster events: Fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other acts of nature.

Emergency events: Theft, accidents, injuries, and major illness.

The examples cited above are not exhaustive but represent the most commonly supported scenarios by the program. Emergencies vary based on an individual’s circumstances.

Activities such as routine or ordinary medical care or procedures, car maintenance and repairs, unemployment or slow business or recurring/ongoing circumstances are not eligible for this program.

If you are a craft artist and you do not see your emergency above, you are welcome to reach out to [email protected] and ask questions.

Applicants must live and work in the U.S. or U.S. Territories for at least the last two years.

Applicants must be 18 years of age or older.

CERF+ verifies artists' identification through a third party system called ID Pal to ensure that an individual is
who they claim to be by confirming their information against independent, trusted data sources.
This process is crucial for preventing fraud, meeting regulatory compliance, and building trust in
digital transactions.
Any application submitted is not considered complete until the third party verification process has been completed.