Statement by the National Endowment for the Arts on the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

The Biden-Harris Administration today released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025, which includes $210.1 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Following historic progress made under the President’s leadership—with over 14 million jobs added since the President took office and inflation down two-thirds from its peak—the Budget protects and builds on this progress with proposals for responsible, pro-growth investments in America and the American people. The President’s Budget will lower costs for the American people, protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, secure Americans at home and abroad, and reduce the deficit by ensuring the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.

The Budget also makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater public engagement with the arts for decades to come.

“President Biden’s Budget affirms the necessity of the arts in all aspects of our lives and society,” said Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “Through the arts we can express our humanity, strengthen our economy and social fabric, and help to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities. I look forward to working with Congress during the budget process.” 

At the NEA, the Budget of $210.1 million, which is $3.1 million more than the Fiscal Year 2023 Enacted amount, will:

• Bolster the Agency’s Signature Grants for Arts Project (GAP), Our Town, and key Leadership Initiatives. The Budget provides $98.8 million in funding opportunities for organizations to strengthen the nation’s arts and cultural ecosystems, including local arts agencies; support good jobs in the arts; and enable all Americans to live artful lives. Through project-based funding, the competitive GAP program supports opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector. This funding will also support the Our Town creative placemaking grant program, which invests in activities that integrate arts, culture, and design into local efforts that strengthen communities over the long term. Among the leadership initiatives supported with this Budget are: the NEA Big Read, which provides support for dynamic community-wide reading programs, and Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network, a partnership with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. Creative Forces seeks to improve the health, well-being, and quality of life for military and veteran populations exposed to trauma, as well as their families and caregivers.
• Grow the Agency’s State and Regional Partnership Program. The Budget dedicates $65.8 million, 40 percent of the NEA’s total grantmaking dollars, to the agency’s State and Regional Partnership Program. This amount will support the nation’s 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies and six regional arts organizations, and will be matched by state resources on at least a one-to-one basis. This approach leverages the NEA’s resources by catalyzing arts projects in thousands of communities across the country.
• Fund an Initiative Focused on Healing Through the Arts. Drawing on the lessons learned through existing initiatives such as Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network and Sound Health Network, this initiative will support efforts that engage arts and culture-based strategies to facilitate individual and community healing. This new initiative will be funded at $2.0 million. Primary components of the initiative include funding for health and healing-related projects, a community of practice, and research and documentation.

The Budget builds on the President’s record to date while achieving meaningful deficit reduction through measures that cut wasteful spending and ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.

For more information on the President’s FY 2025 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.