Looking for one-time assistance in making your arts event more accessible?
The Arts Council’s Access Microfund is a reimbursement program that provides up to $500 to help arts and culture organizations, collaboratives and artists provide accommodations to patrons and artists with disabilities, such as American Sign Language interpretation, audio description, captioning, or materials in alternative formats.
No deadline. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.
Funding for Access Microfund comes from the National Endowments for the Arts.
Eligibility
Nonprofit arts organizations, artist collaboratives, and independent artists serving or working in the nine counties of southwestern Pennsylvania (Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Lawrence, Indiana, Washington, and Westmoreland) are eligible to apply. The Access Microfund is meant for those that are providing arts programming to the public.
Funding through the Access Microfund is not intended to support accessibility accommodations for an organization's full series of scheduled programs. Instead, the fund is for an accommodation outside your scheduled accommodated programs or if you are planning a one-time public program and need additional accessibility assistance.
Examples of eligible accommodations
- American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation of one performance
- Audio description of a single museum tour
- Development of a Braille program
- Interpretation, captioning, or other accommodations for an artist or patron with a disability
Ineligible accommodations
- Series of regularly scheduled ASL interpreted performances
- Audio description of tours and performances that have already happened
- Adding a wheelchair ramp
- Ongoing accommodations for employees or volunteers with disabilities
Application Process
Applications can be submitted at any time and support will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. The Arts Council will make every effort to review your needs as quickly as we can, making decisions and seeking input from representatives of the disability community when appropriate.
You must submit following information in your application:
- Organization or collaborative name and contact information
- The type of accommodation you would like to provide or are seeking reimbursement for, the approximate cost of that service, and how you determined the cost of the accommodation
- The date you wish to offer the accommodation
- Why you want to provide the accommodation
In exchange for a reimbursement through the Access Microfund, you must:
- Provide your accommodation policy or agree to create an accommodation policy no later than two months after receiving funding; and
- Either provide some matching funds or agree to create a line item in your next budget to cover future programmatic accommodations.
