Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant 2026: $5,000 Project Grants for Women, Trans, and Gender-Nonconforming Artists Making Art for Social Change in Greater Philadelphia

Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant 2026: $5,000 Project Grants for Women, Trans, and Gender-Nonconforming Artists Making Art for Social Change in Greater Philadelphia

The Leeway Foundation’s Art and Change Grant (ACG) is one of the most accessible arts grants in the Philadelphia region, and it is designed for artists whose work is inseparable from the change they want to see in their communities. For the 2026 cycle, the grant awards $5,000 to fund a specific art-for-social-change project by a woman, trans, or gender-nonconforming artist or cultural producer living in Greater Philadelphia. Applications are open now, and the deadline is Monday, August 3, 2026.

What makes this grant unusual is not just the money. It is the philosophy behind it. Leeway does not ask for a polished CV or a portfolio of work samples. It does not fund institutions or run its own priorities through the artists it supports. Instead, it asks who you are, what community you are accountable to, and how your creative practice is intended to move something in the world. A peer panel of community-based artists — not foundation staff — decides who is funded. That structure rewards clarity of purpose and lived experience over academic credentials, which is why the ACG has become a meaningful entry point for artists who are often overlooked by traditional grantmaking.

This guide walks through exactly what the grant offers, who qualifies, what changed for 2026, how to build a strong application, and the mistakes that most often keep good projects from getting funded.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Grant Offers

The ACG is a project-based grant of $5,000. It is meant to fund a specific piece of work — a project with a beginning, a scope, and an intended community impact — rather than general operating support or an open-ended stipend. The funds can cover the real costs of making the project happen: equipment, supplies, stipends for collaborators, transportation, and other expenses directly tied to what you describe in your application.

The grant is open to artists and cultural producers working in any medium. That includes traditional and nontraditional forms, as well as multimedia and experimental work. Leeway deliberately keeps this wide. A muralist, a poet running writing workshops in a prison, a filmmaker documenting a neighborhood displacement fight, a dancer building intergenerational performances, a textile artist teaching craft as cultural preservation — all of these can fit, provided that social change is genuinely woven through the ideas, beliefs, and goals of the work and the way it is made and shared.

The critical phrase is “art for social change.” Leeway is not simply funding good art that happens to touch on a social theme. It is funding artists for whom creating change is integral to their practice — art with a vision and an intentional analysis behind it. If the change your work aims for is central to why you make it, the ACG is built for you.

Who Is Eligible

Leeway encourages you to apply if you:

• Identify as a woman, trans*, and/or gender-nonconforming artist or cultural producer.
• Are at least 18 years old.
• Live in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia County in Pennsylvania, or Camden County in New Jersey.

Leeway is explicitly a trans-affirming organization committed to gender self-determination. It uses “trans” in its most inclusive sense — as an umbrella term encompassing transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, Two-Spirit people, and anyone whose gender identity or gender expression is nonconforming or different from the gender they were assigned at birth.

The geographic requirement is firm: you must live in one of the six named counties that make up Greater Philadelphia. This is a place-based grant, rooted in the communities Leeway serves. The full eligibility criteria for artists appear on page 3 of the ACG Guidelines, which Leeway publishes in both English and Spanish. If there is any doubt about whether you qualify — for example, around residency or how you identify — the Guidelines and the foundation’s information sessions are the right places to confirm before you invest time in the application.

What Changed for 2026

If you have looked at the ACG in past years, note two important updates for the 2026 cycle.

First, the grant amount is now $5,000. Some earlier descriptions of the ACG referenced a smaller award, so this is a meaningful increase in what a single project can receive.

Second, Leeway is no longer requiring a Change Partner form. In previous years, applicants had to name a Change Partner — a person or organization affirming that the project was grounded in a community-based process. That requirement is gone. In its place, applicants may include an optional Letter of Support if it feels relevant, but it is not required, and Leeway notes that most applicants will not need one.

A Letter of Support can come from a community member or leader, a previous collaborator, a project partner, or anyone with a meaningful relationship to your art and social change practice. Supporters do not need to live in Greater Philadelphia. Leeway suggests a letter might be useful in a few specific situations: when your project engages a community you are not personally part of, when the project represents a new direction in your practice, or when a community organization or individual genuinely wants to express their investment in your work. You can use Leeway’s template or upload a letter in your own format. If none of those situations apply to you, skip it.

Applying With a Co-Applicant

Because so much art for social change is collaborative, the ACG allows you to apply with a co-applicant. You are only required to submit a co-applicant form if you and another artist are both playing the same role — for example, as co-artistic directors or equal partners on the project. Co-applicants must meet the same basic eligibility requirements, including identifying as a woman, trans, and/or gender-nonconforming person.

There is an important limit: applicants may only apply once per cycle, whether as an individual or as part of a collaborative. You cannot submit your own project and also join someone else’s application in the same round. The co-applicant form is available in both English and Spanish, and the details are covered in the “Collaboration” section on page 4 of the ACG Guidelines.

What the Application Actually Asks For

Leeway has built the ACG application to lower the barriers that keep many artists out of grantmaking. Two features stand out.

You do not submit a resume or CV. Instead, you complete an “Experience Page,” where you provide brief descriptions and dates of four to ten artistic, personal, political, professional, and/or social-change-based experiences relevant to your art for social change work. Leeway is explicit that this is not meant to read like a traditional resume. The review panel values defining moments — the experiences that shaped you as an artist or cultural producer — that a conventional resume would never capture. These experiences are shared with the panel but are never made public.

You also do not submit work samples. Leeway states plainly that work samples are not required, and any that are shared will be removed and not passed to the panel. The decision rests on how well you describe your project and your practice in words.

The core of the application is the Project Description. This is where you explain the project itself and connect it to your practice and to your intended social change. Leeway asks applicants to identify at least one but no more than three “social change intents” that best describe the vision behind the work — there is no right or wrong choice, only the ones that genuinely resonate with your core purpose. A simple budget is also required, listing project expenses such as equipment, supplies, stipends, and transportation. Everything in the budget should clearly connect to what you describe in the Project Description.

How Applications Are Reviewed

An independent peer review panel — made up of community-based artists with a range of experience across art for social change work — decides who receives funding. Leeway staff do not make funding decisions. This is central to Leeway’s model and shapes how you should write.

Because panelists may not be familiar with your particular artistic practice or cultural context, you have to describe your work clearly and in plain terms. The panel reads the Project Description to understand why you are doing this work, the importance and urgency behind it, whether social change is an intentional part of the project, and how your identity and experience inform the work. Do not assume the reader shares your background or vocabulary. Spell out the stakes, the community, and the intended outcome.

The grant is intended to support an individual’s or a collective’s artistic practice, so your application should make clear what your art practice is and how the project engages it. The ACG does not support organizations, corporations, or fundraising activities. It does not fund activities completed before the grant is announced. It will not fund the creation of residencies, apprenticeships, or retreats unless you can show both that they move your own artistic practice forward and that they engage the wider community in a socially engaged project. And it will not fund the same project for which you already received a Leeway grant — though you may apply for a different phase of a previously funded project.

Timeline and Deadline

The deadline for the 2026 cycle is Monday, August 3, 2026. Award notifications go out approximately 10 to 12 weeks after the deadline, which puts decisions around October 2026. Every applicant receives feedback based on the panel’s deliberations — a genuinely useful feature, since even an unfunded application returns concrete guidance you can use next time.

Because funded work cannot include activities completed before the award is announced, plan your project timeline to begin after that October notification window. Building your calendar around a fall or winter 2026 start will keep your project eligible.

Leeway runs information and application-support sessions in the lead-up to the deadline, including virtual info sessions in June and July 2026 and sessions offered in Spanish. These are worth attending. They are the most reliable way to get your specific questions answered directly by the foundation and to hear how past grantees framed their projects.

Preparation Strategy

Start with your Project Description, because it carries the most weight. Write it for a smart reader who does not know your community or your medium. Name the community, the specific problem or vision, and the concrete thing you will make. Then connect that project back to your ongoing practice so the panel sees continuity, not a one-off.

Choose your social change intents deliberately — pick the one to three that truly sit at the center of the work rather than trying to signal breadth. On the Experience Page, resist the urge to list credentials; instead, choose the four to ten moments that actually formed your practice and speak to the issues your project addresses. Keep the budget simple, honest, and tightly linked to the project. If you are unsure whether a Letter of Support would help, ask yourself whether your project reaches beyond your own community or marks a new direction; if not, you almost certainly do not need one.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The most common mistake is treating the ACG like a general arts grant and burying the social-change intent. Leeway funds art where change is integral, not incidental — if a reviewer cannot find the intentional analysis behind the work, the application struggles. A second frequent error is writing for insiders and assuming the panel already understands your context; clarity wins here. Others include proposing organizational or fundraising activities the grant explicitly does not support, submitting unrequested work samples that simply get discarded, listing budget items with no connection to the described project, and applying more than once in a cycle. Finally, do not schedule your project to start before the October notification; costs incurred before the award is announced are not eligible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the grant open to the public? Yes. The ACG is open to the public and provides $5,000 grants to women, trans, and gender-nonconforming artists and cultural producers living in Greater Philadelphia, with a deadline of August 3, 2026.

Do I need a Change Partner? No. As of 2026, the Change Partner form is no longer required. An optional Letter of Support is welcome but not needed for most applicants.

Do I need a resume or work samples? No. You complete an Experience Page instead of a resume, and work samples are not accepted for this grant.

Can I apply with another artist? Yes, as a co-applicant if you share the same lead role. Both must meet the eligibility criteria, and you may only apply once per cycle.

Can I apply in Spanish? Yes. Guidelines, the artist application, and the co-applicant form are all available in Spanish, and Leeway offers Spanish-language information sessions.

Official Links and Next Steps

Read the full guidelines and start your application on the official Leeway Foundation page: https://www.leeway.org/acg. There you will find the ACG Guidelines and hardcopy application in English and Spanish, the co-applicant form, the FAQ, and the schedule of information sessions. Confirm your county eligibility, review the Guidelines’ eligibility and collaboration pages, attend an info session if you can, and submit before the Monday, August 3, 2026 deadline. If your work is rooted in your community and change is at the heart of why you make it, this is one of the most straightforward and values-aligned grants available in the Philadelphia region.