About Our Grantmaking
The Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) administers a comprehensive grants program that distributes more than $5 million in grants to over 500 local arts and humanities organizations and over 2,000 individual artists and scholars each year. Grant awards support individual and organizations that work in a wide array of arts and humanities disciplines including performing arts, folk and traditional arts, media arts, visual arts, literary arts, history, and philosophy.
AHCMC provides grant preparation training to potential grantees, ensuring a level playing field during the application process. Grant applications are submitted via AHCMC’s online grant system, a process that benefits individual artists and scholars, as well as organizations of varying sizes.
Equity & Inclusion
With the acknowledgment and understanding that access to resources has been historically limited for certain groups of people, AHCMC is committed to cultural equity within all funding activities and to serving communities that have been traditionally underrepresented in mainstream funding, discourse, leadership, and resource allocation including, but not limited to, Black, Indigenous, Native American, Latinx, Chicanx, Arab, MENASA (Middle Eastern, North African, South Asian), Asian, Pacific Islander, and other communities of color, socio-economically disadvantaged communities, differently abled individuals and/or people with disabilities, and Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual constituents. AHCMC recognizes that language is fluid, and the intersectional justice movement is redefining terminology regularly. This list is not exhaustive and will be updated periodically as language continues to shift over time.
ADA Compliance
Funded programming and the workspaces for staff, contractors, and volunteers should be accessible to differently-abled individuals and/or people with disabilities. AHCMC encourages applicants to consider physical and programmatic accessibility as an integral part of the project planning and budgeting process. Applicants may include the cost of access accommodations as part of their project’s budget, for example, sign interpreters, audio describers, etc. Click here for Tips for how to implement accessibility can be found our Resources page.
Grants Program Categories
AHCMC’s regular offering of seven grant categories includes project-based support for individual artists and scholars, and both project-based and general operating support for arts and humanities organizations/groups in Montgomery County, MD
General Operating Support II Grants (GOS II) are two-year grants available to non-profit arts and humanities organizations located in Montgomery County, MD that have had both allowable annual cash operating revenue and expenses of at least $150,000 for the last three completed fiscal years. Grant awards support organizations that work in a wide array of arts and humanities disciplines including performing arts, media arts, visual arts, literary arts, and folk and traditional arts, history, and philosophy.
General Operating Support I Grants (GOS I) are available to non-profit arts and humanities organizations located in Montgomery County, MD that have had both allowable annual cash operating revenue and expenses of at least $50,000. Grant awards support organizations that work in a wide array of arts and humanities disciplines including performing arts, media arts, visual arts, literary arts, and folk and traditional arts, history, and philosophy.
Advancement Grants (AG) are available to non-profit arts and humanities organizations located in Montgomery County, MD that have had both allowable annual cash revenue and expenses of at least $50,000 for the last three completed fiscal years. Grant awards support capacity-building projects for organizations that work in a wide array of arts and humanities disciplines including performing arts, media arts, visual arts, literary arts, and folk and traditional arts, history, and philosophy.
Programming & Capacity Building Project Grants (PCBPG) are available to arts and humanities organizations and groups located in Montgomery County, MD that may or may not be incorporated as non-profit organizations with 501(c)(3) status. Grant awards support projects for organizations and groups that work in a wide array of arts and humanities disciplines including performing arts, folk and traditional arts, media arts, visual arts, literary arts, history, and philosophy.
Artists & Scholars Project Grants (ASPG) are available to individual artists and scholars who reside in Montgomery County, MD. Grant awards support projects for artists and scholars who work in a wide array of arts and humanities disciplines including performing arts, folk and traditional arts, media arts, visual arts, literary arts, history, and philosophy.
Wheaton Cultural Project Grants (WCPG) support impactful projects within the Wheaton, MD community and provide professional opportunities for artists and scholars to work in Wheaton. Non-profit arts and humanities organizations, groups, artists, and scholars based in Montgomery County, MD are invited to apply for cultural projects taking place in Wheaton.
Arts Residencies in Schools Grants (ARSG) support individual teaching artists trained in curriculum-based art techniques to serve students from communities that have traditionally received insufficient resources and that have limited access to arts education experiences throughout the school year. Teaching artists are required to collaborate with a classroom teacher to develop an arts program for students during the school day. The program must benefit students in a public or non-public elementary, middle, or high school located in Montgomery County, MD.
Organizations that receive funding in Montgomery County Government’s base budget for operating expenses (or general operating costs) are ineligible to receive AHCMC grant awards in any and all categories for which the applicant applies if the government’s base budget funding exceeds AHCMC’s maximum grant award amounts.