Hello everyone!

I wanted to send out an update on behalf of the GVIAS Grants Committee. It’s been a busy year with a record number of applicants! To date, the Grants Committee has received 112 grant applications, with grant values requested from $50 to $5,000. We are SO excited for all the amazing art on offer this year. There are some truly spectacular pieces coming to What If 2026, so make sure to get your tickets ASAP! It’s a month away!

In the first round of applications ($5,000 maximum), we received 21 funding requests and disbursed $25,039.

In the second round of applications ($2,000 maximum), we received 36 funding requests and disbursed $34,620.

In the most recent round of applications ($1,000 maximum), we received 47 funding requests and disbursed $31,533.

The total art grant budget is $100,000 for 2026 and we are now in the final $500 round. Please apply now, whether your idea is big or small. We’re open to covering art, whatever that means to you. We’ve had feedback in the past of getting more things covered under grants, like consumables or sound, and we are receptive to that, so if you have an idea, please apply, and we’ll review it! https://gvias.org/grants/

One thing we did want to note is that transport is a LARGE percentage of the funding requests we received. I don’t have the data available for the first round, but transport made up 27.4% of round 2 requests and 16.6% of round 3 requests. That’s a lot of money going to truck rentals/fuel when it could be going to art, so we are going to look at options for shared transport for next year.

See you in a month!
Omid Javadi and the GVIAS Grants Committee