rauschenberg dancer emergency grants

The Rauschenberg Dancer Emergency Grants program provides one-time grants of up to $3,000 to professional dancers facing dire financial emergencies, due to the loss or lack of recent/current live performance work, because of circumstances outside of their control.

“Dire financial emergencies“ include the lack or imminent endangerment of essentials such as housing, medicine/healthcare, utilities, and food. This grant program aims to provide dancers with greater stability to move forward by covering up to three months of essential expenses, recognizing the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dance sector, as well as other recent career interruptions including illness or injury.

Please note: the need far outpaces available funds; an application is not a guarantee of a grant. In each cycle we will distribute approximately $65,000 in total funding. Learn more about the review and decision-making process at the bottom of this page.

This program and Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants are made possible through the support of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Robert Rauschenberg was committed to assisting fellow artists in need of emergency aid, ultimately establishing the nonprofit foundation Change, Inc. in 1970. Recognizing the particularly extreme impact the pandemic and its ongoing effect has had on dancers, the Rauschenberg Dancer Emergency Grants have been created.