Heartland Craft Guilds: Capacity Support Grants is a grant program that supports craft guilds and cultural organizations rooted in preserving and sustaining craft traditions, community-based knowledge, and hands-on making across America’s heartland.
Through unrestricted funding and shared learning with other guild leaders, Heartland Craft Guilds builds organizational capacity by supporting the leadership and operational systems that help organizations serve members, deepen practice, and maintain long-term stability and organizational health.
Heartland Craft Guilds is a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA), developed with support from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation. The program reflects a shared commitment to hands-on engagement with materials, mastery of technique, and the preservation, innovation, and evolution of heritage work, particularly within under-resourced and historically overlooked communities.
M-AAA expects to grant a total of $180,000 in the region, through 15 unrestricted, non-matching organizational grants of $12,000 each.
Program at a glance
- Grant amount: $12,000
- Number of awards: 15
- Total funding: $180,000
- Funding type: Unrestricted operating support
- Eligible region: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and the Native Nations in this geography
- Program length: One year
- Participants will also engage in more than 50 hours of learning opportunities over the one-year program period.
Applications open March 24, 2026, and close May 15, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. CT.
Closing Date: 05/16/26
Location: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and the Native Nations
Website: https://www.maaa.org/for-organizations/heartland-craft-guilds/