Working Assumptions Project Grants (Due May 15)
Working Assumptions Project Grants
Deadline: May 15th, 2025
Each year, Working Assumptions awards six $10,000 Project Grants to support visual storytelling projects that inspire audiences and/or participants to look at family in new, meaningful ways. We invite proposals that employ photography or photo-based art for journalistic, artistic, therapeutic, educational, and research purposes. Our funding is unrestricted, allowing recipients complete creative freedom—provided that the project is intended for public consumption and that work on it began prior to the grant application deadline.
At Working Assumptions, we believe that visual storytelling can play a pivotal role in illuminating the complexities of family life today and fostering compassion for the experiences of others. As part of our mission, we support projects that employ photography and photo-based art to spur reflection and dialogue around caregiving, interdependence, and belonging.
We offer six Working Assumptions Project Grants per year. Each grant includes:
$10,000 per grant
8-month grant period (September 15, 2025–May 15, 2026)
Unrestricted funding for complete creative freedom
Projects must have been initiated prior to the application deadline, and may range from photography series and books to public art projects, therapeutic programs, long-form journalism, performances, and more. We leave it up to applicants to define the term family as they see fit, knowing that caregiving and interdependence take place in a variety of contexts. If it’s family to you, it’s family to us.
Note that we give preference to projects that:
Are based on first-person narration and/or on long-term, intertwined relationships with the photographic subjects
Build on earlier, related work by the applicant
Challenge our assumptions about what family, caregiving, and interdependence look like
This opportunity is for individuals and/or collaborations (not organizations), including artists, journalists, educators, therapists, researchers, and creatives across disciplines with a focus on visual storytelling and family.
Residency: Applicants must be residents or citizens of the United States, have a U.S. tax ID number, and have a U.S. bank account.
Age: Applicants must be at least 18 years old.
Eligibility: Applicants cannot have been employees or grant recipients of Working Assumptions within the last two years.