On Friday, some of Colorado's top cultural organizations received an email alerting them that their National Endowment for the Arts funding has been withdrawn.
Twenty-two local organizations received grants for 2025, and CPR News has confirmed that at least eight of those organizations were notified that their funding, anywhere between $10,000 and $40,000 per organization, had been rescinded.
Denver-area organizations that lost NEA funding include the Denver Art Museum, Su Teatro, Motus Theater, the Athena Project and Union Hall.
This is part of a larger, national movement, as President Trump pushes to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the hundreds of millions that it offers to arts and culture organizations each year.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, the NEA is the latest target of Trump’s sweeping overhaul of federal cultural agencies as he seeks to eliminate what he calls “woke” influences. At the national level, the president has fired top officials, cut funding and demanded new guidelines at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In response to the Trump administration's actions, the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation launched a 2025 Arts & Culture Rapid Response Grant to help Colorado groups make up for lost grant money.
The Rapid Response Fund totals $400,000. Arts and culture organizations in the Denver metro area can apply for grants between $5,000 and $20,000.
“The initiative aims to help organizations — including those serving historically marginalized communities such as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities — sustain programming in the face of revenue loss tied to shifting federal policy,” a release from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation said.
The Bonfils-Stanton funding may be enough to replace the total NEA funding awarded to organizations in the Denver metro area, but individual organizations may not fully recoup their losses if their grant was valued over Bonfils-Stanton's $20,000 limit. And it won’t help the organizations elsewhere in Colorado that were also denied their NEA money, including the Creede Repertory Theatre, Fraser Valley Arts and The Tank in Rangely.
“This moment demands that philanthropy meet urgency with action,” said Gary Steuer, president and CEO of Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, in a statement. “Denver’s arts and culture sector is both vulnerable and vital — and we believe it’s essential to help preserve the voices and institutions that bring meaning, connection, and vibrancy to our communities.”
The Bonfils-Stanton Foundation is a private arts funder that offers grants to Denver arts institutions and organizations.
“Federal decisions, and related impacts such as canceled corporate sponsorships and other grants, are already impacting Denver’s creative sector, especially smaller organizations deeply rooted in community,” added Gina Ferrari, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation’s Director of Grants. “This grant is about helping those organizations stay steady in a moment of instability — so they can continue the work their communities rely on.”
Of the $400,000 available, $80,000 has already been allocated — $20,000 will go toward supporting the Juneteenth Music Festival and $60,000 will support Bonfils-Stanton’s Inclusive Communities grant program for small-budget organizations in BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and disability communities.
The first round of applications opens on Tuesday, May 6, with a deadline of 5 p.m. on Monday, May 26. Award notifications for the first round will be shared in June, along with information about a second application window.
Eligible applicants must be 501(c)(3) nonprofits or fiscally sponsored organizations. Priority will be given to groups with a demonstrated loss of funding in 2025, especially those whose work is rooted in arts and culture and whose programming primarily serves Denver, Adams, Arapahoe or Jefferson counties.
