The Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation provides grants to nonprofit organizations whose innovative projects and original ideas will advance scholarship in our collection areas. We accept Letters of Inquiry on a rolling basis for bold proposals that provide promising insights into the fields of art which we collect: Art of the Spanish Americas, Digital & Media Art, Japanese Bamboo, and Post-War Painting & Sculpture. We also welcome requests pertaining to the arts and culture of the American Southwest.
Although we fund projects from across the United States, we are particularly interested in receiving proposals from our target regions. In the U.S., this includes Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, with particular emphasis on rural and nonmetro institutions and organizations from within those states. For projects related to our Art of the Spanish Americas collection, we also occasionally fund international projects.
We value long-term relationships with grantees and encourage you to connect with us at any stage of the application process. The Foundation prefers 12 months’ notice before the start of a project. For more information on projects we have supported in the past, view our previous recipients. Questions about our grant opportunities should be sent to grants@thomafoundation.org.
All grant requests must be submitted through our online grant portal. Your initial letter of inquiry should provide general information about the project such as the start and end dates, requested amount, and total budget, as well as a 200- to 300-word synopsis of the project outlining the main goals of the project and its significance.
Before submitting your LOI, please read our Criteria for Collections-Related Nonprofit Grants page. If your organization has not previously worked with the Thoma Foundation, we also encourage you to reach out to our grants team in advance of applying to discuss your particular project.
The projects we support through our Collections-Related Grants for Nonprofits fall within one or more of the following categories:
Exhibitions
As of Spring 2022, we are excited to learn about exhibitions that are slated to open in mid-2023 through 2024. We welcome the opportunity to become an early funder of landmark exhibitions that relate to our collections, and which significantly raise the public profile of those genres while also advancing art historical scholarship. Historically, we have cultivated strong relationships with medium-size museums across the country that reach a diverse regional audience and value innovative curation. Exhibition funding can include development, scholarship, construction, outreach, traveling costs, admissions subsidies, and more.
The Thoma Foundation also loans pieces from its collections in support of exhibitions. The loan application process is separate from our grant platform; please see our collections site and read the FAQ page to learn more about our artwork loans.
Convenings
To encourage scholarly debate and dialogue, we fund academic conferences and workshops that will significantly advance the fields of art scholarship related to our collections. We urge applicants to familiarize themselves with industry standards for honoraria and per diems in advance of creating a convening budget.
Academic
Research, travel, manuscript development, hiring research assistants, equipment, etc. to support original scholarship related to our collection areas. Academic projects should culminate in a clear final deliverable such as a book manuscript or peer-reviewed article. For potential partners working in university settings, a letter stating our policy on funding indirect costs is available on our Grantee Resources page.
Publications
As of January 2022, our Publication Grant program is currently on hold while we reevaluate our strategic priorities. Please refer to our separate Publications Grants page to learn more.
Please note that our applicants for Awards & Fellowships for Individuals do not need to submit a separate LOI and should use the grants portal.