The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation are stepping up to replace some $800,000 in funding to 80 visual arts programs that was lost due to sudden cuts the Trump administration made in February to promised grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). 

The foundations’ grants will offer $10,000 to each to programs at small and medium-sized cultural organizations that lost funding when the NEA eliminated its Challenge America grants, which were slated to go to underserved areas, serving vulnerable populations and remote communities. At the same time, the NEA changed its guidelines for grant applicants, encouraging projects that celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Among the grantees are the Kids & Art Foundation, in Burlingame, California, which was slated to get the NEA grant to support healing arts workshops for pediatric cancer patients and their families; Pennsylvania’s Allentown Art Museum, to increase access for people with dementia and their caregivers; Free Arts for Abused Children, in Los Angeles, for free art programs for youth in trauma-informed care; InToto Creative Arts Forum, in Birmingham, Alabama, for art classes for the homeless; and Latinitas, in Austin, Texas, for public mosaics honoring Black and Latina community leaders in East Austin.

Courtesy of Appalachian Arts Craft Center, Clinton, Tennessee.

“The Warhol Foundation recognizes the essential contributions that small arts organizations make to our cultural lifeblood by giving artists in every corner of the country a platform from which to be seen and heard,” said Joel Wachs, president of the Warhol Foundation, in press materials. “We want them to know that we see the extremely difficult circumstances under which they are operating and we value and appreciate their work. We are committed to providing some semblance of stability and continuity during this time of unprecedented upheaval.”

“In times of crisis—whether in response to natural disaster, global pandemic, or financial disruption—foundations do their best work when they come together to assert shared values,” said Elizabeth Smith, executive director of the Frankenthaler Foundation. “We at the Frankenthaler Foundation are pleased to partner with the Warhol Foundation to support the health of visual arts organizations by stepping forward to assist with these vital and timely funds. While our missions focus support on the visual arts, our shared hope is that this effort may inspire peer funders to support Challenge America grantees working outside of the visual arts, who remain in urgent need of assistance.”

Latinitas, a public installation of mosaics honoring community leaders in East Austin, Texas. Courtesy of Latinitas.

The NEA cuts were just part of a broader campaign by Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed up by the world’s wealthiest man, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, to eliminate funding for culture or redirect the funding toward what Trump deems patriotic expression.

After the February changes at the NEA, Trump pushed for major cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, including a 70–80 percent staff reduction, later putting the agency’s staff on leave and canceling more than 1,000 grants. It decreed days later that the funds should be redirected to the president’s proposed National Garden of American Heroes. In March, DOGE decimated the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which awarded some $266.7 million to recipients all over the country in 2024.

The decimation of the NEH and the IMLS left lingering questions about why the NEA was spared the scythe, but those questions were put to rest by Trump’s latest proposed budget, presented to Congress on May 2, which proposed to eliminate, or eliminate funding to, the NEA, NEH, and IMLS entirely, “consistent with the President’s efforts to decrease the size of the Federal Government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities.”

The Mellon Foundation similarly came forth in April, saying it would distribute $15 million in emergency funds to state arts councils as a way to partly bridge the gap created by NEH cuts.