We’re excited to share that Games for Change is slated to receive its first-ever support from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in their inaugural year of supporting games as an artistic medium. Since 1965, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.

The NEA plans to award 928 grants totaling $77.17 million to not-for-profit organizations nationwide. These grants support exemplary projects in arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, opera, presenting, theater, musical theater, and visual arts while providing support to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations.

In May 2011, the NEA launched the Arts in Media grant program to recognize numerous digital fields which had not been previously eligible for consideration of support, including games, interactive websites, mobile phone and tablet apps, multimedia and transmedia (multi-platform storytelling) projects and those which will be seen in movie theaters.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said, “While Americans across the country are experiencing art live and in person every day, NEA research has shown that more than half of American adults also consume the arts via electronic media. I am thrilled to announce these Arts in Media grants and look forward to the organizations’ efforts to reach ever wider audiences and create innovative new works of art.”

We are grateful to receive two separate grants. The first in the Art Works category (supporting the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts); the second in Arts in Media (supporting the development, production, and national distribution of innovative media projects that can be considered works of art).

Funding will acknowledge the long-standing work of the Games for Change Festival, an event which in 2011 achieved record attendance (800 in person / 10,000 via Livestream) and has served as a nexus for those interested and exploring what it means to design and publish games which catalyze social engagement. It also supports a new and ambitious transmedia project, Half the Sky, which we have shared frequently on the blog.

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