OVERVIEW: The Puffin Foundation makes small grants to artists and arts organizations “who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities.” It also funds annual awards for human rights activism and “creative citizenship” and provides ongoing support to investigative journalism organizations and publications.
IP TAKE: The Puffin Foundation awards grants of up to $2,500 to emerging artists and community-based arts organizations in music, dance, theater, visual arts and writing. Most of its grantees aim to express and share ideas about social justice and the human experience. The foundation names music, dance, theater, visual arts and writing as areas of priority, but usually makes grants in only one or two of these areas each year. It has also recently begun supporting community-led conservation efforts.
Prospective grantees should check the Puffin Foundation’s website frequently for its funding schedule. To receive a paper application, applicants must send a self-addressed and stamped envelope to the foundation. While accessible, the foundation tends to be bureaucratic. Applications are generally due at the end of each year, and paper copies of applications must be delivered to the foundation via U.S. mail or another delivery service. Despite these extra hoops, it’s worth it to apply if your work aligns with the foundation’s. However, organizational applicants must have an annual budget of less than $500,000 and projects must have a budget of less than $250,000.
This foundation prioritizes small, community-led organizations, artists in the early stages of their careers and projects that have the potential to have a positive impact on communities. Funding is limited to the U.S., with a strong emphasis placed on artists and groups in the states of New Jersey and New York.
PROFILE: Since its founding in 1983 when it was known as Puffin New Jersey, the Puffin Foundation has “[s]ought to open doors of artistic expression by providing grants to artists and art organizations who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities due to their race, gender, or social philosophy.” Its founder, Perry Rosenstein, served in the South Pacific during World War II, and later developed a system of manufacture “that revolutionized the field of fasteners.” Rosenstein died in 2020 at the age of 94 from COVID-19, and his wife, Gladys Miller Rosenstein, now runs the foundation. While this funder makes grants in the areas of music, dance, theater, writing and visual arts, it usually focuses on one or two disciplines each year. The foundation has named film and the environment, a new funding interest, as its award areas for 2021, and “fine arts” as its expected focus area for 2022.
Grants for Film
The Puffin Foundation’s film grants are awarded under the umbrella of its video, film and radio focus area, which will be the grantmaking focus for 2021. Other than the foundation’s overarching mission of supporting artists and arts organizations “who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities,” the foundation does not name specific goals or interests for these grants. Past grants have supported filmmakers that have made feature-length, short and documentary films, as well as artistic film and video installations. In 2019, the Alliance of Ethics and Art, Inc. received funding for a documentary film, Enduring Alliances: Jewish Refugee Scholars and Black Colleges in the South. In 2013, the foundation supported the American Friends Service Committee’s “If I Had a Trillion Dollars” Youth Film Festival. Other grantees include an advocacy film that aimed to stop strip coal mining in Montana and a video installation that addresses the exploitation of physical labor.
Grants for Visual Arts
Puffin’s visual arts grants are awarded under the categories of fine arts and photography. Fine arts, which the foundation expects to name as its area of focus for 2022, supports projects in a broad range of media, including sculpture, ceramics, painting and collage. Grants have also supported visual arts research, restoration projects and public arts education programs. In 2013, New Jersey’s American Labor Museum received a grant to run art classes for elementary school students. Another recent grant supported the artist Laura Alton’s collage project on the cultural identities of West Indian peoples. In photography, a 2016 grant went to Axle Projects, which used funding to run a mobile portrait studio in and around the Navajo Nation. The photographer Ann Rosen received a photography grant for her project, a collection of portraits of women living in shelters in Brooklyn and Rochester in New York.
Grants for Music
As with its other areas of grantmaking, the Puffin Foundation does not outline specific goals for its music grants. Grants have gone to a broad range of artists, groups and organizations engaged in composition, performance and education. Community Concerts for Bergen County in New Jersey received funding for a series of free concerts in public venues, and in California, Bay Area Girls Rock used a grant to support its music education summer camps. Other music grantees include the Braata Folk Singers, the saxophonist Tyrone Birkett and the ensemble Mise-En, inc.
Grants for Dance
Puffin’s dance grants tend to support contemporary and ethnic dance performance and choreography as well as dance education and therapeutic programs. One recent grantee, Sarah Council Dance Projects, received funding for the development of a choreographed piece about women living “on the margins of society.” Another recent grantee, Los Angeles’s Diavolo Institute, received funding for its multigenerational dance project that aims to “get families working together.” Other dance recipients include the Clairobscur Dance Company, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange and BALAM Dance Theater.
Grants for Theater
Recent theater grants have supported playwriting, theatrical productions, community theater projects and theater education programs. In Indiana, Arts Rising received funding for its Playback Theater Festival, and California’s Arcata Playhouse used a grant for an outdoor family festival that featured puppetry, shadow play and lantern making. Playwrights to receive grants include Alice Yorke, Anna P. Meredith and Lesley Asistio.
Grants for Writing
Puffin’s written word grants support writers working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, journalism and hybrid/multimedia genres. The author Lydia Conklin received support for the creation of a graphic novel, “Camp Interesting,” and Deborah Gross-Zuchman used funding to support the writing of her illustrated poetry collection “Windows into War.” In the area of journalism, the foundation supports Puffin Reporting Fellowships overseen by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. Fellows of this program have produced pieces about predatory lending practices, the language of high finance and gerontocracy.
Grants for Environmental Conservation and Justice
The environment is a newer area of grantmaking for the Puffin Foundation, which, until recently, has only made a handful of grants for environmental initiatives, many of which overlapped with its arts grantmaking. One past grant supported the photographer Fiona Cundy, who created images to support advocacy for the protection of Alaska’s Bristol Bay. Another environmental grantee, Friends of a Studio in the Woods, ran a land memory bank and seed exchange program to mitigate environmental vulnerabilities in coastal regions of southern Louisiana.
Grants for Journalism
The Puffin Foundation provides ongoing support to several organizations involved in investigative journalism. Its grantees include TYPE Media, Mother Jones, In These Times, Democracy Now, Jewish Currents, Jacobin and The Nation.
Other Grantmaking Opportunities
Each year, the foundation awards two $100,000 awards: the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism and the Puffin Prize for Creative Citizenship. The Award for Human Rights Activism is a joint project of the foundation with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and “honors the legacy of the American volunteers who fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War by preserving their history to inspire and advance the work of modern progressive movements.” In 2020, the prize was awarded to an organization, No More Deaths, which aims to “alleviate the suffering and end fatalities of those crossing the southern border of the United States.” The Prize for Creative Citizenship is awarded to “an individual who has challenged the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative and socially responsible work of significance.” Individuals working in the fields of academia, journalism, public health, the arts and environmental sciences are eligible to receive the prize. In 2020, Desmond Meade won the award for his work as the president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.
The Puffin Foundation also funds the Puffin Gallery at the Museum of the City of New York and Puffin Cultural Forum at its Teaneck, New Jersey headquarters.
Important Grant Details:
The Puffin Foundation makes about $4 million in grants each year. Its arts and environmental grants are generally awarded in amounts up to $2,500. Grantees include individual artists and small arts organizations that have a strong, positive presence in their communities. A significant number of grantees express ideas about social justice and the human experience or aim to enrich communities through artistic experience. The foundation maintains a database of past grantees on its website.
This funder rotates the artistic disciplines for which it accepts applications yearly; prospective grantees should check the website frequently for updates about what is being funded in any given year. Applicants must request an application by sending a self-addressed and stamped envelope to the foundation. Completed paper applications must be delivered to the foundation by U.S. mail or another delivery service. Applications are generally due at the end of each year. U.S. citizens, permanent residents and DACA recipients are eligible to apply. Organizations with annual budgets over $500,000 and projects with budgets over $250,000 are not eligible. General inquiries may be submitted to the foundation staff via its online contact form or via email.
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