A coalition of seven charitable foundations — the Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and an anonymous foundation – pooled $50 million for the Literary Arts Fund, an effort to dramatically boost the underfunded nonprofit literary arts field in the United States.
The fund, initiated by Mellon as a collaborative effort in service of the field’s needs and promise, will distribute at least $50 million during the next five years, with continued fundraising planned. Each of the initiative’s seven founding funders made a one-time gift to establish the fund along with the Literary Arts Funders Collaborative, a new affinity group for charitable foundation leaders interested in learning more about the literary arts field and championing literature.
The coalition has tapped veteran literary leader Jennifer Benka to direct the fund, which is fiscally sponsored through the National Center for Civic Innovation. For the past 20 years, Benka has helmed organizations such as the Academy of American Poets and Poets & Writers that have supported hundreds of literary arts nonprofits, and poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers across the U.S. Benka’s professional expertise includes creating and administering new grantmaking, residency, fellowship, and capacity-building programs supporting writers and nonprofits across the U.S.
“Art does not find its way forward in a search for commercial success. Without nonprofit publishers American letters would have stalled long ago,” Percival Everett, poet and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James, said via a statement. “This initiative demonstrates the kind of spirit that we hope our writers exhibit. This is the kind of support that will reinvigorate the entire artistic landscape of our culture.”
Literature is the least-supported artistic discipline in the U.S., receiving only 1.9% of the $5 billion in arts grants awarded in 2023 according to data collected from Candid. This disparity, coupled with other ongoing challenges, including shrinking public funding and rising operating and publishing costs, underscores the underfunding in the nonprofit literary arts field and the urgent need for the Literary Arts Fund’s support, according to a statement from the foundations.
“The literary arts give voice to who we are as a people,” Elizabeth Alexander, poet and president of the Mellon Foundation, said via a statement. “Novelists, poets, and all manner of creative writers shape and drive our collective discourse and capacity for invention and imagination. American philanthropy can play a bigger role in strengthening the financial infrastructure of the literary organizations and nonprofits that serve these literary artists. As we initiate this historic effort, we at Mellon are pleased to join with our co-funders in sustaining and further stewarding the extraordinary legacy and power of the written word in our country.”
The Literary Arts Fund will award grants to U.S.-based nonprofit or fiscally sponsored literary organizations and publishers that support contemporary writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or hybrid literary forms through an annual open call beginning November 10. Full guidelines and eligibility details are available at Literaryartsfund.org
