Accelerating digital transformation in the arts

Arts and culture are essential for growing informed and engaged communities. Arts practitioners, through their work, connect people to place and to each other. Increasingly, technology is becoming an essential component of this work, both for individual artists and arts organizations, and technology is constantly changing. With every evolution in technology, artists leverage new and emerging tools to impact the way their work is created, viewed, shared and consumed. Across artistic genres, facility with technology and digital tools is no longer an optional skill set. 

The Knight Art + Tech Expansion Fund seeks to support artists and arts organizations in Knight communities by equipping them with the tools they need to expand the use of technology in their work and engage audiences in innovative ways.

Funding for technology in the arts is often tied to specific projects, but doesn’t always provide the resources artists need to expand capacity in order to meet growing market demand to incorporate technology and digital programming. This is why Knight Arts is increasing its commitment to the artists and arts organizations.

Funding decisions for the Knight Art + Tech Expansion Fund will be made based on the applicants’ demonstrated capacity to use technology to increase the impact and reach of their work. Categories eligible for funding are: 

Purchase and installation of hardware and/or software (e.g., licensing of archiving software, installation of live streaming equipment, purchase of cloud storage)
Build-out/permanent infrastructure (e.g., installation of networking equipment, outdoor projections)
Staff or contract support (e.g. contract videographer, full-time web developer, social media manager)
Website design and development 
Mobile application development
Digitization/archiving (e.g. digital collection photography, media conservation/preservation, archives records management, etc.)

The Knight Art + Tech Expansion Fund is open to individual artists, non-profit arts organizations, and arts collectives based in our Knight communities. Funding opportunities are only open to applicants who are not currently Knight Foundation grant recipients.

Information Sessions

Please click on your city above to learn more.

View the recent virtual information session:

“With the Art + Tech Expansion Fund, Knight will ensure that artists and arts organizations in our Knight communities will have the technical resources to engage with audiences in exciting new ways.”

— Koven Smith, Senior Director/Knight arts