2026 Native Performing Arts Fellowship Application
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First Peoples Fund Overview
Founded in 1995, First Peoples Fund is guided by our belief in Collective Spirit. Collective Spirit is a commitment to nurture our shared humanity and honor our connection to one another, the lands around us, those who came before us, and the spirit of all things. The Collective Spirit moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, pass on ancestral knowledge, and extend a hand of generosity. The Collective Spirit is essential to sustaining the cultural fabric of Native communities and our ability to thrive. Our mission is to honor and support the Collective Spirit of First Peoples artists and culture bearers. Our work recognizes the power of art and culture to bring about positive change in Native communities, beginning with individual artists and their families.
2026 NATIVE PERFORMING ARTS FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
The Native Performing Arts (NPA) Fellowship is a year-long program that helps Native Artists create, practice and perform within the Performing Arts (theater, music, dance, live performance, etc.). The program provides them with network-building, professional development training and funding to work toward building a sustainable career within the Performing Arts landscape.
The NPA Fellowship offers a one-year $10,000 grant to Native performing artists. The program's purpose is to develop independent, satisfied, and credible Native performing artists, who are generous in spirit and dedicated to cultivating ways that grow their artistic knowledge and skills within their performance craft. Applications are open to Native performing artists at all stages of their career.
The NPA Fellowship is not a project based grant. Proposed budgets should be grounded in needs to further artistic growth or/and achieve artistic career goals rather than providing financial support toward a new or existing creative project. Developing or completing a solo creative project can be a component of your proposal, but should not be the primary goal or outcome of your fellowship year.
- Consider what resources you will need in order to start or grow your artistic career or skill set, and what you will be able to accomplish with funding.
- Any proposals for performance-based project(s) that involve multiple performers or require high production demands are not a focus of this fellowship.
Examples of artistic growth needs or career goals can include (but are not limited to):
- taking classes, seminars, workshops, private lessons with professional experts or coaches in any field of performing arts, consulting legal, and financial professionals (agent, publicist, tour manager, etc.), creating a website to showcase your performance work, getting professional headshots, building a marketing strategy for your performances, or strengthening relationships with cultural bearers and teachers to maintain cultural knowledge and values.
If you have a project/production in need of financial support, we encourage you to apply for the 2026 Native Performing Arts Live Production Grant.
FELLOWSHIP INFORMATION
Grant amount: $10,000.
- 90% (or $9,000) will be disbursed once initial paperwork and orientation measures are completed.
- The remaining 10% (or $1,000) will be disbursed in December 2026 upon completion of closing measures.
Fellowship window: January 1, 2026 - December 31, 2026.
Selected artists should expect to attend an annual fellowship convening where all FPF fellows are brought together for a multi-day event. This is normally held in the spring. Past convening locations have included Santa Fe, Phoenix, and Minneapolis.
ELIGIBILITY
- Applicants must be at least 18 years of age at the time of application.
- Applicants must reside and be based within the U.S.
- Applicants who reside outside of the U.S. are ineligible to apply.
- Applicants must be an enrolled member of, or provide proof of lineal descendancy from, a U.S. federally-recognized or U.S. state-recognized tribe, or be able to provide proof of ancestry as an Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian.
- For more information about acceptable documents, please click here.
- Applicants may not be enrolled in any academic, degree-granting program.
- Native practitioners of all performing arts mediums, both traditional and contemporary, are welcome to apply. This includes theater, music, dance, live performance, spoken word and more.
- Artists whose primary mediums are not within the performing arts field are not
eligible to apply for the
NPA Fellowship.
- Any performance based project(s) that involves multiple performers or requires high production
demands will not be eligible.
- Activities that are part of the applicant's coursework at an institution of higher learning will not be
considered, i.e. senior or thesis exhibitions, juried student shows, etc.
- Film projects, short or feature length, are not eligible at this time.
- If you received a Performing Artist fellowship, Artist in Business Leadership or Cultural Capital fellowship in 2025, you will not be eligible to apply for the 2026 NPA Fellowship. Any previous fellows must wait a year before applying to any First Peoples Fund (FPF) fellowship programs.
- If you are a previous grantee with any First Peoples Fund (FPF program), you must have submitted a final report for any previously awarded FPF Grants.
APPLICATION PROCESS
This is a one-year program and we expect that your application clearly details your proposed artistic development within a one-year timeframe.
A completed Fellowship application includes an Application submission in Submittable. Applications sent over email will not be considered.
Below are the following components of a completed Fellowship application.
Application Information
Reference Letter
About the Artist - Narrative Questions
Artistic Career Goals, Description and Activities
Supporting Documents (uploads)
To view an overview of the NPA Fellowship Application, please click here.
TIMELINE
- Application Opens: Monday, June 9th, 8am MST
- Application Closes: Wednesday, July 16th, 6pm MST
SELECTION ANNOUNCEMENT: Applicants will be notified in December 2025
QUESTIONS?
Contact Natalie Benally, Program Manager of Performing Arts, with any questions by calling 505-278-0412, or via email at: natalie@firstpeoplesfund.org