The Quilt Alliance was stunned to learn last week that our National Endowment for the Arts grant has been terminated without warning, and future federal funding is uncertain.

In July 2023, the Quilt Alliance was thrilled to launch the second phase of the Community Quilt Days project. After seven successful quilt documentation events in rural Appalachian communities, we applied to the National Endowment for the Arts for the funds to expand our documentation work to five new groups. The NEA’s Grants for Art Projects program awarded the QA $20,000 to work in partnership with communities that are underrepresented in our quilt documentation projects, including: African American quilters, Native American quilters, Modern quilters, and quilters who volunteer for the Quilts of Valor Foundation. The required 50% matching funds came from four family foundations as well as individual donors and members. 

On Friday, May 2, at 10 pm, we received an email from the NEA saying that our grant has been terminated, effective May 31, 2025. 

The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities. The NEA will now prioritize projects that elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities. Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration’s agenda.

Your project, as noted below, unfortunately, does not align with these priorities:
Purpose: To support the research, documentation, and care of quilts.

Today, we submitted an appeal of the termination since we are working with communities listed in the updated priorities statement (Tribal communities and veterans). Since the grant project period is near completion, we expect to receive the remaining funds. The funds we receive from the NEA not only help us work with partners to collect quilt and maker documentation, but they also allow us to bring these stories to you, our community.

Oral histories and videos documented via Community Quilt Days have been shared via free Textile Talks and presented on our free YouTube channel, and all oral history interviews we collect are shared on the free Quilters’ Save Our Stories project website and archived in the Library of Congress and at the University of Kentucky’s Nunn Center for Oral History. Support from the NEA and our partnerships with the Library of Congress and the Nunn Center signal to our community that we are meeting high standards and are worthy of trust and reliability as a partner. 

Despite the changes in the NEA’s priorities, we believe the “research, documentation, and care of quilts” is still a priority for our community. We do not intend to alter our focus or discontinue our goal of documenting quilts and quiltmakers from all areas of our community, including voices that are currently underrepresented in our projects. We want the QSOS oral history collection to be a true representation of quiltmaker voices across America. 

In April, we were excited to submit a new grant proposal to the NEA that would support regional quilt documentation trainings across the country. We plan to partner with museums, other nonprofits, and corporate partners to teach our projects to others so that guilds and groups can establish and sustain documentation work in their area. Included in this proposal is a timeline of quilt stories from 1776 to the present. The grant was submitted under the NEA’s priorities for the Folk and Traditional Arts category, and with the recent policy change, we’re not confident about whether our proposal will be considered at all. This uncertainty makes it difficult to budget and plan for upcoming project work.

Since we received our grant termination notice, we’ve heard from other nonprofits in our community of fiber arts organizations. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive also received a termination notice. Other colleague organizations, like the Surface Design Association, await notification of NEA grant submissions made last summer.

Thank you in advance for your support. Our community is strong and your voice matters!