The Arts Council can help you raise funds for your artistic work by serving as your fiscal sponsor. Fiscal Sponsorship allows you to solicit tax-deductible donations and apply for grants without having a 501(c)3. This program is open to all artists and organizations in every artistic discipline within the Greater New Haven region. There is a 7% administration fee on all funds raised. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Current Projects
One Village Healing
At the intersection of arts, healing, and justice - One Village Healing [OVH] is an emerging New Haven based wellness and healing arts initiative dedicated to creating spaces, convenings, and programming, rooted in the values of the healing justice movement to collectively heal from the impact of systems of oppression so we can all live wildly liberated, connected, inspired, and healthy lives.
The New Haven 48 Hour Film Project
The CT branch of the 48 Hour Film Project which is the longest running timed film competition in the world. It is a fun, and energizing way to create short films and get those films screened at a movie theater. Some of these films go on to screen at Cannes! The NHV48HFP has been a creative outlet for filmmakers to work with together and expand the CT film community.
Orchid Blossom Mural
A three-story mural of lavender orchid blossoms on the side of the Hillside Family Shelter. Children in the community will be engaged to work collaboratively to paint the bottom.
Racial Equity Action and Community Healing
REACH is an initiative that promotes healing and partnerships among advocates, allies, healers, activists, civic and community leaders across Connecticut.
Cool Breeze Concert Series
A concert series designed to promote the variety and tradition of music, uniting the talents and styles of local and regional artists.
Creative Hearts
Creative Hearts’ mission is to create a positive and nurturing space that gives young people ages 8-18, the opportunity to find their voice and explore their own artistic talents and abilities.
Lost in New Haven
A collection of artifacts from centuries of New Haven's long history organized in a way that tells the story of industry, culture, invention, and waves of immigrants who built the city.
The State House
The State House is a multi-purpose performance and arts venue located in New Haven’s Historic 9th Square whose mission is to mirror the cultural diversity of New Haven’s residents in its programming while also exposing New Haveners to some of the world’s greatest cultural performers.
The Word
A transformative literary arts program for New Haven's young people that builds and sustains liberated community by creating radically inclusive writing and performance programs founded in poetry, rap and song.
Elm City Lit Festival
Annual celebration of books, literature and literary artists with the purpose of enhancing literacy while promoting awareness of local, regional and global artists of the Diaspora.
The Table Underground
A radio show, podcast, and website focused on recording inspiring stories of marginalized peoples and issues, in the realms of food, race, radical love, and creative social justice. The stories are recorded through audio, written, and photo mediums, with a focus on representing people’s narratives in their own voices.
At Home in New Haven
A virtual stage around which people from across the city and beyond can gather to be awed, entertained, informed, and inspired by the gifts, knowledge, talent and ingenuity of their neighbors... all while supporting their work and the local economy.
Bloodroot
A healing photographic experience for womxn on the path back to their bodies for the purpose of personal and collective liberation.
Interruptions
Interruptions Disrupting the Silence is a story about a middle class Suburban Urban family victimized by Gun Violence.
The History of Native Americans in Connecticut
This one hour documentary will tell the overarching story of Native Americans in our state - the original tribes, structures, governments, cultures, challenges and individual stories about members of the tribes over time up to the present day.
Pitch My Song
A premiere event produced by Top Secret Songwriter. Music industry professionals are invited as a special guest to be interviewed during a live Q&A. Next singer-songwriters have an opportunity to pitch their song live for the opportunity to land gigs and gain exposure.
The Kitchen
A BIPOC centered co-working and co-creating space that exists to provide resources and culturally affirming space for artists of color to work, create, and collaborate.
Black Infinity Collective
Black Infinity Collective is a Blackity-Black-led and centered freedom fighting, movement building, liberation organization.
Reclaiming Our Whole Selves
ROWS is a white affinity healing space that will hold space for white folks to name and heal from the harmful impacts of socialization in a white supremacist society.
Black Obsidian Men's Group
The Black Obsidian Men’s Group is creating spaces of intentional healing and growth specifically for black men. It's a space for wisdom and courage. A space where vulnerability and connection is fostered through group discussions, workshops, coaching and retreats.
Playmaking New Haven
Playmaking workshops, performance opportunities and mentorship for young artists.
Amplify the Arts Festival
Two-day Hamden festival with performances + artists booths showcasing local artists.
ThaTeam Podcast
We’re The Groupchat in Podcast form here to Entertain, Inform and Inspire.
Ubuntu Storytellers
Ubuntu Storytellers’ purpose is to open our collective hearts through empathic listening, to engage in respectful honest dialogue to be moved to change.
Bars on I-95
A platform where you get to see your favorite hip hop industry and underground artists display their lyrical abilities on a show dedicated to the power of vocabulary.
The Breed Academy
The Breed Academy works with young urban professionals to build a career in the arts and entertainment sector.
Places to Go
A QPOC artist collective creating an open-source, alternative, interactive web platform to work with art and mental health. Provides a platform for youth to express their own ideas about mental health and create building blocks for further iterations of Places to Go.
Nasty Women Connecticut
A platform for organization and resistance to remove elitism from our local art scene and empower all members of our community to participate in making and experiencing art. Their video testimonial project will capture diverse voices that will be edited and added to a growing symphony of voices that highlight ways people feel marginalized in today’s society - personally, politically, and culturally.
Wábi Gallery
A community focused art gallery committed to diversity, inclusion, education, and sustainability.
Little Free (Hope & Healing) Lending Libraries
Three new free lending libraries in public spaces across the City of New Haven stocked with BIPOC authors. Sites will host a series of readings, activities and book clubs.
Sweets & Sounds Entertainment
Dedicated to curating projects, content and events which connect people through food, music and art
that are centered around Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
Pinned & Sewtured Puppet Slam
An evening of curated short form puppet theatre for adults. Since its inception in 2014, the mission has always been to provide an inclusive and supportive platform showcasing local puppeteers, performers and musicians.
Mural of Ruth Wilson Gilmore
A mural to honor prison abolitionist Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, who was born in New Haven in 1950.
Crit Haven
Crit Haven brings together art professionals including curators, art historians, art therapists, and administrators, and local artists for critiques in the artists studio. Responding to the artists work allows for collaborations to form naturally and connections to be made across artistic practices.
On Memory
On Memory aims to transform a local brownfield into a park imagined by and for the local New Haven community, The Memorial Art Park, commemorating the lives of those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and promoting healing through the arts.
ArtsWestCT
The mission of ArtsWestCT is to center creative expression and performance by and for the community of West Haven, CT.
Cause51.org
A crowdfunding platform that enables artists to leverage their talents to support causes they believe in while earning an income creating art.
Reimagining New Haven in the Era of Climate Change
Reimagining New Haven in the Era of Climate Change is a grassroots initiative aimed at raising
awareness of the local risks of climate change and engaging all sorts of people in prioritizing and
designing responses to them.
Ready to get started?
Past Projects
Requiem for an Electric Chair
A theater project by Toto Kisaku that premiered during the 2018 International Festival of Arts and Ideas. With a gun to his head, Toto Kisaku was moments away from being killed by his government when his executioner showed him a moment of mercy. His only crime? Creating art that questioned the practice of child exploitation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
WE ARE: A Nation of Immigrants
A photography based media company whose mission is to create community based public art installations for the purpose of building awareness and stronger bonds between disparate parts of the community. WE ARE – A Nation of Immigrants is designed to highlight the contribution immigrants make to our culture. The project consists of large-scale dignified portraits of recent refugees and immigrants attached to the exterior walls of the three Churches on the Green and in other New Haven venues.
Grace
An independent film project lead by Stephen Dest showcasing the City of New Haven and Yale University.
Unbecoming Tragedy
A play that is an engaging example of one person’s very real struggle with and triumph over difficult circumstances and conditions.
Boundless Literacy
Boundless Literacy provides small-group, evidence-based reading instruction to students with reading deficits in Connecticut's districts of opportunity.
Gift-Passion-Purpose Project
Gift-Passion-Purpose Project, Inc. was founded by Dr. Tiffany Jackson. The primary purpose is to nurture the musical gifts of aspiring singers and instrumentalists from underrepresented communities primarily in Connecticut.