Grantees

CANVAS grants are by invitation only.

Network Grants
Media Grants
Distribution Grants
Network Grants
Media Grants
Distribution Grants

Network Grants

CANVAS supports networks that develop, nurture, and connect individual cultural creatives and Jewish cultural institutions whose work:

  • Focuses on ideas or themes inspired by Jewish religion, history, tradition, ritual, or culture
  • Prioritizes artistic excellence worthy of (inter)national recognition
  • Fosters meaningful engagement with Jewish and secular communities.

 Why networks? Because in addition to supporting individual artists and institutions, networks are crucial to the field of Jewish arts and culture. Networks inspire the creation of new work while providing a long-lasting and emotionally rewarding sense of community. Networks provide artists with a much-need opportunity to share and learn best practices, whether they are creative or financial. Networks help artists survive and thrive.

 We define networks as places that:

  • Act as a hubs of activity for creatives
  • Provide education, funding, or other connections for creatives
  • Connect creatives to one another
  • Connect creatives to distribution channels, sources of revenue, and career development
  • Ideally, providing these services in an ongoing way.

Emerging Network Grantees

The mission of Co/Lab is to help foster the next iteration of Jewish life in Portland, Oregon, hosting programs that examine issues of personal meaning and social change through a Jewish lens. The “Co” part is important: it’s a reflection of their commitment to bring people together to dream, experiment, and collaborate in order to create events of the greatest interest and relevance to the community.

Co/Lab takes an inclusive and non-judgmental approach to Judaism. The organization wants to open the door wide to all those who seek to explore Jewish identity and ideas in new and innovative ways. And above all, Co/Lab trusts in curiosity, collaboration, and experimentation to lead us to new connections and vistas.

The Museum of Jewish Montreal is redefining what it means to engage in Jewish life. In addition to hosting art exhibitions and leading hundreds of walking tours and food tours annually, the museum hosts dozens of cultural events throughout the year based around art, food, music, and history. The museum also runs annual research, food, and oral history fellowships for university students and microgrants for creative and cultural exploration. Through these diverse initiatives, the museum provides new opportunities and experiences for visitors of all backgrounds to explore and engage with art, culture, history, and community.

Yetzirah is dedicated to fostering and supporting a community space for Jewish poets and nourishing writers and readers of Jewish poetry now and for generations to come. Founded in Asheville, North Carolina, Yetzirah is the only national organization devoted to the support of Jewish poets and Jewish poetry, Yetzirah supports poets at every stage of their career through workshops, publishing resources, regional and online readings, writing community creation, and recognition and visibility to event organizers, teachers, and scholars through its Discover Jewish Poets database. Its events are welcoming to audience members of all traditions, raising awareness of Jewish poetry in communities beyond our own.

The Alliance for Jewish Theatre develops, promotes, and preserves theatre with a Jewish sensibility, as well as developing powerful theatre productions that serve diverse communities. In addition, the AJT strengthens the connections between its 300+ members—institutions and individuals—with its inspiring annual conference.
The Jewish Art Salon indefatigably supports visual artists who work with Jewish themes—in fact, it is the largest international artists’ and scholars’ network for contemporary Jewish visual art. The JAS provides exhibitions, resources, and programs, developing lasting partnerships with artists, institutions, and the general public. JAS currently has 450 active members around the United States and the world.
The mission of The Jewish Plays Project is “to put bold, progressive conversation on world stages.” With an “innovative and competitive development process,” the JPP champions new voices and works toward production opportunities for the best new plays. Each year, the JPP selected 7 to 10 playwrights for development. As a network, JPP connects with over 60 writers.
The Jewish Studio Project puts creativity at the service of personal transformation and social change. The “Jewish Studio Process” helps participants access their creative power for self-discovery and collective liberation. They offer a range of specific programs: Studio Immersives, Creative Facilitator Trainings, and professional development.
The Kultura Collective is a network of 14 Toronto-based Jewish arts, culture, and heritage organizations, in collaboration with the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. Through the network, the collective supports the visual arts, photography, Yiddish, and Holocaust education, providing opportunities for cultural enrichment, intellectual growth, and spiritual fulfillment, enriching live across Toronto and beyond.
The New Jewish Culture Fellowship is a network of Jewish artists, writers, and performers who investigate the elusive “cultural Judaism” that marks the identity of so many Jewish people today. NJCF brings together a yearly cohort of Brooklyn-based Jewish artists for learning and creative feedback. NJCF fellows then produce new work for the public—concerts, workshops, readings, screenings, talks, and more. The NJCF is looking to expand its model to a national level.
Based in Philadelphia, The Rising Song Institute “sparks the musical soul of the Jewish people.” It nurtures high-caliber, professional artists who seek to bring Judaism into their music; provides participatory concerts and musical gatherings; and offers a leadership training program.
The Workshop is a 10-month, New York-based arts fellowship that supports the work of artists from the JOCISM community (Jews of Colors, Indigenous Jews, Sephardim, and Mizrahim). It is housed by the JTS Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice. The fellowship provides contemporary Jewish artists the opportunity to explore how Jews understand themselves and how contribute new answers to the quest for Jewish meaning.

Network Grantees

Asylum Arts, a global network of Jewish artists with 676 members in the Americas, Israel, Europe, Australia and Africa, supports contemporary Jewish culture on an international scale, bringing greater exposure to artists and cultural initiatives and creating opportunities for new projects and collaborations. Artists join the network by attending facilitated multi-day retreats, and receive small grants to create new work. Asylum Arts believes in the power of face-to-face meetings as a way to build community and to strengthen relationships and skills among artists working in the Jewish cultural landscape. Since 2013, it has held 20 retreats in 11 locations throughout the world, and it currently runs an artist residency in California. Asylum Arts provides professional development, skill-building and capacity support for artists as they seek to build careers in the arts and have a greater impact on audiences.

Asylum Arts also supports select network artists with small grants that enable them to develop creative projects that explore Jewish and Israeli ideas.

The Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) is the national voice for Jewish museums across 60 communities in the United States and Canada. For more than 40 years, CAJM has been the central network for Jewish museums—bringing together colleagues and thought leaders for field-wide advancement. CAJM is the field’s source for promoting new thinking, collaborations, innovative practice, and community engagement. It works to strengthen its member institutions as visible, vibrant, magnetic arenas for the expression of Jewish culture and community. It is the leading forum for Jewish museums in North America and the professionals and creatives that work with them, and is a conduit to colleagues working in Jewish culture and museums at large.

Jewish Book Council‘s mission is to promote the reading, writing, and publishing of Jewish literature. Engaging and educating authors and readers across the globe, Jewish Book Council’s goal is to enrich the connection to Jewish life and identity and to create conversations with generations of readers across our Jewish communities. Through public programs; book club resources; a print literary journal, Paper Brigade; weekly essays, interviews, and reviews online; conferences; partnerships with cultural arts organizations; and over 20 literary awards, including the National Jewish Book Awards, JBC provides tools for substantive conversations about Jewish experience. 

LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture is a premier incubator for Jewish art and culture. Its goal is to present Judaism’s rich literary and intellectual tradition in a free-flowing, intellectually rigorous, and endlessly playful environment so that these stories and ideas spark new thought and art. LABA’s mission is to reignite the community space with a constant exchange between artists, their work, and the community.

LABA is a non-religious house of study and culture that uses classic Jewish texts to inspire the creation of art, dialogue, and exploration. LABA’s home is the 14th Street Y, one of Educational Alliance’s community centers in New York City. Educational Alliance has a storied history of investing in Jewish arts and cultural programming. For 130 years, Educational Alliance has inspired culture-makers to innovate Jewish life through the arts. Since 2008, LABA has been the modern, successful manifestation of this legacy extending into all programs at the Y and encouraging deep engagement with Jewish text and life. The creative output of LABA pushes the boundaries of what Jewish art can be and what Jewish texts can teach. LABA has been named one of the most innovative Jewish organizations in North America by the Slingshot Guide and is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. In 2015, LABA expanded to Buenos Aires and recently to the East Bay. With CANVAS funding, the LABA network can seed new work, expand its reach through its satellite locations, and enhance LABA content and thought.

Reboot reimagines, reinvents and reinforces Jewish culture and traditions for wandering Jews and the world we live in. Reboot envisions powerful creative arts and cultural experiences – drawn from the rich treasures of Judaism – transforming, inspiring and rekindling Jewish connections and meaning in our day-to-day lives. As a premier R&D platform in the Jewish world, Reboot touches lives by engaging the most talented community of creatives to design, produce, and share with the world enticing, imaginative, memorable, and experiential projects and programs that are relevant for the 21st century.

Distribution Grants

“Distribution” refers to the myriad ways that audiences come into contact with the work of contemporary Jewish artists—through organizations, platforms, stages, screens, museums, public spaces, and more. CANVAS supports Jewish arts and culture networks that provide community development of artists, as well as media outlets that elevate and expand the volume of coverage about Jewish creativity. We see the distribution of that work—specifically, how this creative content engages and inspires audiences, fosters diverse representations of Jewish life and experience, challenges stereotypes and changes narratives, and provides opportunities for cross-cultural connection and understanding—as an essential component of a thriving Jewish arts sector. CANVAS grants are for distribution programs and activities taking place in North America that:

  • Provide consistent access to contemporary Jewish arts and culture through performances, exhibitions, presentations, digital platforms, or other formats that connect audiences with artists and artworks.
  • Provide meaningful opportunities for engagement with the Jewish and/or secular community.
  • Prioritize the quality, sophistication, and variety of work presented, including opportunities to celebrate the diversity, complexity, and intersectionality of Jewish tradition, ritual, history, and experience.
  • Elevate (right-size) the perception among Jewish and/or mainstream audiences of artists who are creating noteworthy, original, and consistently excellent work that explores Jewish ritual, history, culture, tradition, and experience.
  • Demonstrate the ability to effectively document programs and initiatives, market to audiences, generate engagement, and to measure this over time.
  • Demonstrate good financial health and a clear plan for stability and/or growth.
  • Provide evidence of direct, fair compensation to artists or creatives.

Competitive proposals will also include at least one of the following objectives:

  • Build capacity and strengthen the Jewish arts and culture field through knowledge-sharing and resources.
  • Provide professional development opportunities and support for artists, both emerging and established, to develop their craft and advance their careers.
  • Prioritize reach, influence, and/or meaningful engagement with audiences on regional or national levels.
  • Advance Jewish arts and culture within the broader contemporary arts and culture field.
  • Reach underserved or historically marginalized audiences or creatives in the Jewish arts and culture field.

Distribution Grantees

The Ashkenaz Foundation celebrates global Jewish music, arts, and culture that embraces the past, present and future. While rooted in the spirit and forms of the Yiddish culture revival, Ashkenaz spotlights a broad range of multi-ethnic Jewish identities and artistic/cultural traditions, providing a platform for artists established and emerging.

Through its biennial Ashkenaz Festival—one of the largest and most prestigious showcases of Jewish music and culture anywhere in the world—and a robust slate of year-round programs across the Greater Toronto Area, Ashkenaz seeks to reach the largest possible audiences, both creating and meeting a demand for high-quality Jewish arts and culture, and providing its core Jewish audience with a source of pride, inspiration and community cohesion.

Ayin Press is an independent publishing house and production studio rooted in Jewish culture and emanating outward. Ayin was founded on a deep belief in the power of culture and creativity to heal, transform, and uplift the world we share and build together.

Both online and in print, Ayin celebrates artists and thinkers at the margins and explores the growing edges of collective consciousness through a diverse range of mediums and genres, including nonfiction, fiction, poetry, art books, children’s books, interviews, translations, multimedia projects, conceptual projects, digital art, immersive events, and online programming.

Jewish Arts Collaborative, or JArts, is a Boston-based organization that curates, celebrates, and builds community around the diverse world of Jewish arts, culture, and creative expression. Through art, food, literature, and music, JArts celebrates the richness and diversity of Jewish experiences, helping to build a more vibrant and tolerant future for Jewish communities and beyond. Its groundbreaking Kolture website curates and celebrates Jewish culture, providing a place where lovers of Jewish art, music, literature, and other forms can embrace Jewish experiences.

The Jewish Film Institute (JFI) is the premier curatorial voice for Jewish film and media around the world. Founded in 1980 as the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), JFI’s programs illuminate the full diversity of Jewish experiences, championing bold films and filmmakers that expand and evolve the Jewish story for audiences everywhere. We envision a more informed and empathetic world where vital Jewish-content films are made, watched, shared, and treasured.

The Braid is the go-to Jewish story company and the leading non-profit organization creating, curating, producing and preserving stories grounded in Jewish culture and experience. Based in Santa Monica, California, the Braid develops, produces, distributes and preserves diverse contemporary Jewish stories that engage and educate individuals, inspire community, and build cultural legacy. Its pioneering new art form, Salon Theatre, a hybrid of storytelling and theatre, spotlights and mainstreams voices and experiences too often overlooked in both the Jewish community and secular world.

Media Grants

CANVAS supports media organizations interested in more fully exploring modern creativity informed by Jewish ritual, tradition, history, and culture. The purpose of CANVAS Media Grants is to increase the quantity, sophistication, and range of coverage dedicated to contemporary Jewish arts and culture. Other goals include more imaginative presentations of contemporary work, such as interactive reporting, multimedia, and public events.

Media Grantees

This multifaceted media group received CANVAS funding to expand its coverage of Jewish arts and culture on the Alma platform. Alma posts features, interviews, and videos, and deftly makes social media magic with coverage devoted to Jewish artists, musicians, and cultural figures—Alma’s Instagram is a must-follow. Much of Alma’s original content finds its way across the 70 Faces landscape, from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to Kveller and Nosher.
The Forward is a leading Jewish voice in American journalism. Digital-only since spring of 2019, The Forward is  providing the ideal 21st century platform for Jewish news, information, conversation, and debate.

The Forward boasts a rich history of cultural reporting—serious culture journalism has been a pillar of the brand since its founding as a socialist Yiddish daily. With CANVAS funding, The Forward is now expanding that coverage to include more modern Jewish artists, exploring how their work impacts the Jewish world and the broader cultural landscape. The Forward’s digital storytelling is becoming more substantive and sophisticated, keeping pace with the field of Jewish arts and culture, and its diverse range of mediums and makers.