The Global Connections program was designed by TCG and is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. US-based theatre organizations and individual artists may apply to one of the two initiatives of this new program:
Global Connections—On the Road: This initiative will award 6 grants of up to $5,000 each application cycle to foster new relationships with international colleagues that will inspire each other’s work and aesthetics by creating opportunities for cultural exchange.
Global Connections—In the Lab: This initiative will award 5 grants of $10,000 each application cycle to further pre-existing international collaborations by supporting residencies that either advance the development of a piece or explore elements leading up to a full production.
On the Road grants are not prerequisites for the In the Lab grants. Previous recipients of other TCG grants are eligible to apply in this program. Please review the deadline section which identifies specific periods for all eligible activity.
OTHER FUNDING &RESOURCES
Funding:
Performing Arts Initiative
The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs supports a variety of cultural exchange programs that utilize the performing arts to reach out to diverse publics abroad. Through these programs, American performers also learn to value other cultures.
Arts Council of Northern Ireland
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland offers funding for individual international artists to perform in Ireland.
Asian Cultural Council
The Asian Cultural Council offers grants to projects of particular significance to Asian-American cultural exchange in dance, film, video, music or photography. It also provides fellowship grants to artists, scholars, students and specialists from Asia to study, research, and travel.
Association of Performing Arts Presenters
The Association of Performing Arts Presenters provides grants through an Ensemble Theatres Travel Subsidy Program and an International Travel Program. Its international networks, such as Africa Consortium and World Music Cultural Alliance, also support cultural exchange efforts.
CEC Artslink
CEC ArtsLink is an international arts service organization. Its programs support exchange of artists and cultural managers in the United States with their counterparts in Central Europe, Russia and Eurasia.
Dance Theater Workshop
Dance Theater Workshop sponsors more than 200 performances and 70 installations by contemporary dance, theater, music, and visual artists annually in 8 distinct production series. One of the most active producers in the country, Dance Theater Workshop's First Light program also provides artists with commissioning support for new creations.
The Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation offers grants to increase opportunities for cultural and artistic expression of people from all backgrounds. It fosters documentation, dissemination and transmission of creative art forms, broadens audience involvement and access, and improves the livelihoods of artists.
The Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Specialist Grant
The Fulbright Program offers grants and resources to students, scholars, and professionals for cultural exchange projects.
International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX)
IREX offers grants for research in cultural institutions that will relate to U.S. foreign policy. The organization is dedicated to promoting open, democratic societies by strengthening the third sector—nonprofit organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and community groups. IREX designs and implements programs that foster collaborative and flexible approaches to meet local community needs.
Lab for Culture
Lab for Culture is a European run website dedicated to providing an online information and knowledge platform for European cultural cooperation. The website provides a range of information on cultural cooperation, transnational cultural exchange, cultural debate, news and research. It also includes a large array of resources from agencies, foundations, and philanthropies as well as information on financing and sponsorship.
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA)
NASAA's mission is to advance and promote a meaningful role for the arts in the lives of individuals, families and communities throughout the United States. The organization aids state arts agencies through strategic assistance that fosters leadership, enhances planning and decision making, and increases resources. Various state arts agencies offer funding and support for cultural exchange projects.
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
The NEA has created a number of cultural exchange partnerships including International Literary Exchanges, ArtsLink, USArtists International, U.S./Japan Creative Artists’ Program, and U.S./ Mexico Cultural Connections.
National Performance Network
National Performance Network offers cultural exchange funding in partnership with La RED for projects in Latin America.
Open Society Institute
The Arts and Culture Program promotes cultural and artistic collaboration throughout the Soros foundations network, fosters structural changes in cultural policy, and helps develop an autonomous and innovative arts sector. The program's primary goal is to stimulate cultural activities while respecting and celebrating differences among countries.
Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
Robert Sterling Clark Foundation supports work to strengthen cultural institutions in the U.S.
The Scandinavia House
The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) promotes international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The site contains information on grants, educational programs, fellowships, and training programs.
Theatre Communications Group/International Theatre Institute
Theatre Communications Group through the International Theatre Institute awards travel grants to foster artistic exchange and partnerships between theatre professionals in the U.S. and other countries.
Trust for Mutual Understanding
The Trust for Mutual Understanding is an American foundation that supports cultural and environmental exchanges between the United States, Russia, and Eastern and Central Europe.
U.S. Embassies and other diplomatic missions
Website with general resources for funding from the State Department. Includes Fulbright fellowships and other professional and educational exchanges. Embassies occasionally offer funding for individual projects.
U.S. Regional Arts Organizations
The U.S. Regional Arts Organizations are six non-profit entities created to encourage development of the arts and to support arts programs on a regional basis. Partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, these organizations provide technical assistance to member state arts agencies, support and promote artists and arts organizations, and develop and manage arts initiatives on local, regional, national and international levels.
New England Foundation for the Arts
Serves Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Arts Midwest
Serves Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Mid America Arts Alliance
Serves Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
Serving the states of Delaware, District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virgin Islands, Virginia, and West Virginia, along with nationwide support for performing artists through USArtists International and for presenters through Southern Exposure: Performing Arts of Latin America.
Southern Arts Federation
Serves Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Western States Arts Federation
Serves Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
UNESCO houses the cultural section of the United Nations, an organization created to promote international dialogue and diplomacy. UNESCO offers funding, support, and prizes for a wide variety of arts related projects that promote international understanding and communication.
Visiting Arts
Visiting Arts promotes the flow of international arts into the UK and develops related cultural links abroad to help build cultural awareness and positive cultural relations. The organization awards funding and provides support for projects.
Resources:
Alliance for International Cultural and Educational Exchange
The Alliance for International Cultural and Educational Exchange is an advocacy group that provides professional representation for the international exchange community to policy makers. The alliance holds workshops, presentations and meetings on policy related issues as well as organizing the international exchange community as an effective constituency.
American Theatre Magazine
May/June 2008 edition is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
ArtRole
A UK-based contemporary arts organization developing international culture exchanges with the Middle East.
Artists From Abroad
Artists From Abroad is the most complete and up-to-date online resource for foreign guest artists, their managers, and performing arts organizations.
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. The Institute convenes an arts, culture, and society series which conducts conversations and research on critical issues related to arts, culture and sustainable development.
Central and Eastern Europe’s Cultural Institutions
The Central and Eastern Europe’s Cultural Institutions provide recorded data on cultural project funding offices via publishing houses, exhibiting halls and theatres to music and arts centers.
European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
The ECF is Europe’s only independent, non-national and pan-European cultural foundation.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation
Since 1915, The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) has carried on programs and educational projects concerned with domestic and international peace and justice, nonviolent alternatives to conflict, and the rights of conscience.
Genesis at the Crossroad
Genesis at the Crossroad is a Chicago-based not-for-profit organization dedicated to bridging cultures in conflict through the arts and creating innovative arts-education programs around the world.
German Academic Exchange Service
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is a publicly-funded independent organization of higher education institutions in Germany. It provides information from 14 international offices as well as financial support to over 50,000 highly-qualified students and faculty per year for international research and study.
The Global Alliance
The Global Alliance offers an advanced network of useful contacts to help organizations and businesses gain access to others offering support, advice, and expertise to get cultural initiatives off the ground. Projects range from local level 'people to people' projects to the design of far-reaching public policy and regulatory frameworks.
KadmusArts
KadmusArts creates online content, platforms, and social networks for arts, media, and entertainment companies. Its also maintains an up-to-date and thorough database of world-wide information on artists, performances, arts organizations, and cultural initiatives.
On the Move: Performing Arts Travelers Toolkit
On The Move is dedicated to information about international activities, projects and their funding, in the areas of theatre, dance, music and other performing arts disciplines.
Play Service
Play Service contains information about organizations, theatres and projects connected with contemporary drama from around Europe. It also hosts a search engine for plays and translations.
Sister Cities International
Sister Cities International is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network creating and strengthening partnerships between U.S. and international communities in an effort to increase global cooperation at the municipal level, to promote cultural understanding and to stimulate economic development.
Theatre & Peace Building: Coexistence International at Brandeis University
“Strengthening the Contributions of Theatre to the Coexistence Field”, is a collaboration between two entities: 1) Coexistence International at Brandeis University (CI), and 2) Theatre Without Borders (TWB). It builds on on-going work that has been taking place at Brandeis University within the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence, in an inquiry into creative approaches to coexistence and reconciliation.
Theatre Without Borders
Theatre Without Borders is a grass-roots, volunteer virtual community that shares information and builds connections between individuals and institutions interested in international theatre exchange.
Words Without Borders
Words Without Borders (WWB) opens doors to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world’s best writing.