Through partnerships with foundations the National Guild makes grants to full members. Our grant programs focus on key initiative areas of creative aging and partnerships with public schools.
 

The National Guild for Community Arts Education launched the MetLife Foundation Creative Aging Program in 2009 in response to a major demographic shift underway in the United States—the number of adults age 65 and above will double by 2050—and recent research demonstrating that sustained participation in professionally-led arts programs can promote health and prevent disease in older adults. CAP’s goals are to:

• increase the capacity of nonprofit community arts education providers to serve older adults;
• expand and/or deepen existing creative aging programs of high quality; and
• identify exemplary creative aging programs as models for the field.
  
  

CAP is part of the National Guild's Creative Aging Initiative.

Available free online: Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit
 

The Partners in Arts Education Program, initiated in 2005 in partnership with the MetLife Foundation, focuses in part on grant making to full members of the National Guild. This program aims to enhance arts learning in K-12 public schools by supporting partnerships between Guild members and public schools that have the following characteristics:

• Exemplify best practices in creating and sustaining effective partnerships
• Demonstrate joint creation of programming and curricula
• Provide high-quality arts education experiences
• Prioritize student learning and achievement in the arts
• Serve large numbers of public school students during the school or extended day
• Address national, state, and/or local arts education standards