People-Powered NEA Fund for BAX: Nurturing Emerging Artists
Do you believe artists and cultural spaces are disposable?
We don’t either!
Created in direct response to BAX’s funding loss through the gutting of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), BAX is creating its own People-Powered Nurturing Emerging Artists (NEA) Fund. We recognize a simple truth: if the federal government will not support BAX artists and young people, then we must organize together to sustain them ourselves. Period!
Grounded in BAX’s 35-year legacy of multigenerational arts education and community-building, the People-Powered NEA Fund for BAX invites individuals, families, artists, alumni, and neighbors to collectively invest in BAX’s artistic residencies and programs and help bridge this critical funding gap through grassroots support. This people-powered support is what will get our community through federal disinvestment in the arts.
Instead of relying on large (and painfully unstable) institutional systems, the fund centers the power of many people investing together to sustain accessible arts education, artist mentorship, youth leadership, disability artistry initiatives, affordable rehearsal space, and socially engaged cultural work.
BAX’s NEA Fund will be an ongoing annual giving initiative to support BAX’s emerging artists through programs and residencies. It also reflects BAX’s belief that arts spaces are not separate from civic life, but essential community infrastructure: places where young people learn to take up space and build confidence, where artists develop new work and find collaborators, and where communities gather across difference to imagine and practice more just futures together.
The People-Powered NEA Fund isn’t only a fundraising initiative, but a collective call to action and a living expression of our values. As BAX celebrates 35 years of community-rooted cultural work, this fund is an invitation to build the next 35 years together: collectively, locally, and with the fierce belief that artists, young people, and cultural spaces are essential to collective life!
Will you build with us?
Giving Levels:
The Founding Co- Chairs $10,000+
Founding Co-Chairs help shape the future of BAX in a transformative way.
This leadership level directly supports the expansion of BAX programming and artist opportunities, helping make possible additional Space Grant cohorts, expanded Artist in Residence (AIR) capacity, and deeper long-term investment in emerging artists across generations.
Founding Co-Chairs are not only sustaining existing programs, but helping BAX grow what is possible for artists and communities in the years ahead.
Includes all Co-Chair benefits, plus:
-
-
- Opportunities to help seed and celebrate new artist cohorts and initiatives
- Special gatherings with BAX leadership, artists, and Board members
- Deeper engagement with BAX’s long-term artistic and organizational vision
- Recognition as foundational supporters helping expand artist opportunities at BAX
-
The Co-Chairs $5,000-$9,999
Co-Chairs anchor this effort in a significant way.
As leadership supporters of the People-Powered NEA Fund, Co-Chairs help strengthen BAX’s capacity to nurture emerging artists across generations while bringing others into the circle. Their support helps stabilize and sustain this work during a moment of deep instability for artists and cultural organizations nationwide.
Co-Chairs are invited into deeper relationship with the artists, leadership, and long-term vision of BAX through intimate gatherings and direct engagement with the organization’s evolving future.
Includes all behind-the-scenes invitations, plus opportunities for deeper engagement with BAX artists, staff, and leadership, including:
-
-
- Intimate social gatherings with BAX artists, Board, and staff
- One-on-one conversations with BAX Co-Executive Directors and program leaders
- Invitations to special artistic process events and anniversary gatherings
- Opportunities to engage directly with the long-term vision and future of BAX
-
The Council $1,500–$4,999
The Council is a collective of committed supporters helping sustain and grow this work over time.
Council members play an active role in ensuring that artists, youth, families, and communities continue to have access to brave spaces for experimentation, mentorship, collaboration, and artistic risk-taking.
At this level, supporters are welcomed further into the artistic and relational life of BAX through deeper opportunities for exchange, conversation, and witnessing process as it unfolds.
Includes invitations to expanded behind-the-scenes events and community gatherings, including:
-
-
- Artist salons
- Drag Performance rehearsals
- Artist shares and studio visits
- BAX Annex Toast gatherings
- Special conversations with artists and program leaders
-
Council members help sustain not only individual programs, but the long arc of artistic development and community care that defines BAX.
The Panel $500–$1,499
The Panel helps strengthen the connective tissue of BAX’s artistic community.
Panelists support the ongoing nurturing of emerging artists while engaging more directly with the artistic process and community life of BAX. This level begins to open the door into the behind-the-scenes life of the organization: the experimentation, conversation, rehearsal, and relationship-building that sustain artistic practice over time.
Includes invitations to select behind-the-scenes gatherings and artistic process events, including:
-
-
- Artist shares
- Open rehearsals and work-in-process events
- BAX Annex Toast gatherings
-
Panelists help ensure that emerging artists have not only resources, but also community around them.
The People $1–$499
The foundation of this fund.
The People make this effort truly people-powered. Every contribution, at every size, helps sustain the living ecosystem of BAX and the many ways artists are nurtured over time.
This level recognizes that cultural ecosystems are not sustained by a handful of institutions or major donors alone, but by communities of people who believe artists matter and who choose to invest, collectively, in creative lives and futures.
Support from The People helps make possible:
-
-
- Artist residencies and rehearsal support
- Family scholarships and youth arts access
- Practice Lab and EmergeNYC scholarships
- Free festivals, performances, and community gatherings
- Professional development for Teaching Artists
- Affordable rehearsal and performance space
- Accessibility initiatives and community care practices
- Brave spaces where artists and communities can gather, imagine, and grow
-
The People are invited to receive updates from the artistic life of BAX and opportunities to witness the ongoing process of nurturing emerging artists across generations.
From The People to The Co-Chairs, each level is part of a shared ecosystem of care, creativity, and collective investment in artists and communities!