Arts and Culture has the power to elevate lives, strengthen our communities and fuel our creative economy. All around Southeastern Pennsylvania, artists perform, inspire and provide hands-on instruction at schools, libraries, hospitals and community centers. While these collaborative efforts between artists and community organizations are invaluable to our region, they are often underfunded. If you are an artist, arts administrator, or organization looking for funding, the Cultural Alliance administers the following grant programs:

Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts Grants

The Cultural Alliance is a regional partner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA). Through the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program, the Cultural Alliance works with the PCA to evaluate proposals and distribute grant awards throughout Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. This program enables the PCA to reach a wider audience by increasing access to funds for organizations and artists across the state, thereby increasing statewide audience exposure to arts activities.

IMPORTANT UPDATE AS OF 11/7/25

Along with adopting its new brand identity as PA Creative Industries, PCA recently adopted a new strategic framework and updated its mission as the statewide agency dedicated to strengthening the Commonwealth through the arts. 

As part of this transition, the statewide Pennsylvania Partner in the Arts (PPA) program will be drawing to a close, and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s role as the PPA administrator for the southeastern region of the state will conclude after this fiscal year (FY26). As one of the 14 regional partners across the state, the Cultural Alliance has served as the steward of PPA grant programs for over two decades, including the Creative Sector Flex Fund (CSFF) and the Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator (CEA). Details on changes to each program are updated on their respective pages.

The Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator Program (CEA)

Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator (CEA) - a program that provides creative entrepreneurs who aspire to start their own for-profit business, or who operate an existing for-profit micro business, with access to existing small business consulting services and financial resources. 2026 ROUND OPENS MARCH 2, 2026. Learn more.

The Creative Sector Flex Fund (CSFF)

2025-2026 CSFF Grants Awarded in January 2026.

The 2025-2026 CSFF applications have closed and the grant will not be offered in the future.

The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) introduced a new grant program, the Creative Sector Flex Fund (CSFF), in 2023-2024. Learn more.

Past Grants

COVID-19 ARPA PA Arts and Culture Recovery Program (PACR) 

COVID-19 Arts Aid PHL

In 2020, the Cultural Alliance administered COVID-19 Arts Aid PHL, a pooled emergency relief fund for individual artists and arts organizations. In total, the fund awarded $4 million to 466 arts and culture organizations as well as 977 individual artists. This unprecedented collaborative effort, which was created by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund (PCF) and the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) focused on supporting individual artists as well as small arts and culture organizations (annual budgets no greater than $250,000) and mid-sized organizations (annual budgets of $250,000 - $15M) whose operations, revenues, work and livelihood have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Learn more about Arts Aid PHL at philaculture.org/artsaidphl.