Rocket Relief Cycle 2: Emergency Grants for Artists Impacted by Coronavirus

Rocket Relief Cycle 2 provides emergency support to individual artists across the urban and rural Missouri/Kansas bi-state region within an 80-mile radius of Kansas City. The program aims to help artists whose income has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and who need assistance with basic expenses such as food, housing, medical costs, and child care. This fund is open to all self-identifying visual, multi-disciplinary, and performing artists in the Rocket Relief region. Grant amounts are available as flat stipends of $1,000.

Eligible applicants must be individual artists (visual/multidisciplinary, theater, dance, music, or performative storytelling/poetry/spoken word) with primary residence within an 80-mile radius of the Kansas City metro area, over 21 years old, and not full-time students. Artists must demonstrate a recently active creative practice record within the past two years and submit 5-10 images and/or up to 3 audio or video files. Applicants must provide a 300-word narrative (or 2-minute video/voice narrative) describing loss of income due to the coronavirus pandemic and any additional circumstances affecting their ability to meet basic needs. Organizations and artists who have already received a Rocket Relief grant are not eligible.

Rocket Relief uses a lottery method weighted to prioritize applications based on emergency needs. Ten artists per week will be chosen by lottery until all funds are exhausted. In recognition of the disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities from COVID-19, at least 60% of awards will be granted to artists who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or artists of color. The first 10 recipients will be notified on September 25, 2020, with subsequent weekly drawings. At launch of cycle 2, $50,000 in total is available in grants thanks to support from Arts KC, Spencer Museum of Art, and The Andy Warhol Foundation. Grantees will not be announced publicly, and information provided is confidential.