Working Assumptions’ 2026 Project Grants (Due June 1)
Working Assumptions’ 2026 Project Grants
Deadline: June 1st, 2026
The world is filled with stories and storytellers. Our grants support people and projects that turn their lens on the give-and-take of family and care.
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 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, family, interdependent communities, and belonging.
We offer six Working Assumptions Project Grants each year:
$10,000 per grant
Eight-month grant period: October 1 to June 1
Unrestricted funding for complete creative freedom
Projects may range from photography series and books to public art projects, therapeutic programs, or long-form journalism.
What We Fund
We support photography and photo-based art projects that explore the everyday give-and-take of family and caregiving. We believe visual storytelling can illuminate the complexities of family life today—fostering compassion and sparking reflection and dialogue around these themes. We welcome photography-focused proposals across artistic, therapeutic, educational, and research contexts.
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.
Have been initiated prior to the application deadline, to some degree.
Expand our understanding of what family, caregiving, and interdependent communities look like.
We are also drawn to work that actively visualizes the exchanges and acts of care and family life. We’re interested in photography that captures people in motion, in relationships, and in the midst of everyday rituals. While portraiture can be a powerful tool within a broader documentary project, we prioritize work that documents the dynamic, lived texture of family and caregiving over static, portrait-centered approaches.
Please Note: Projects must employ still photography as the central medium for communicating the themes of Working Assumptions. While we value the moving image as a storytelling tool, projects involving film or video are only eligible when the moving image accompanies or is integrated into a photo-based project. Projects that are solely documentary films are not eligible unless they focus thematically on photography of family or care.
How Do We Define Family?
While we recognize that the term "family" is complex and multifaceted, Working Assumptions is interested primarily in two dimensions of family:
the family/care contexts each of us inherits, and their relationship to the formation of our self-image
the sustained, interdependent relationships we enter into by choice or circumstance
These two aspects of family often remain in dialogue throughout our lives, as we embrace, reject, and alter elements of each along the way.
Though family can take many forms, for our purposes, the term refers to the complex web of obligations, responsibilities, rituals, and sentiments that bind together two or more people over time. For Working Assumptions to view a grouping as family, its members must engage in at least some of the following activities:
Having a biological or adoptive relationship
Demonstrating commitment and mutual obligation
Providing for members’ emotional and physical well-being
Caregiving
Spending time together
Sharing resources
Sharing memories and histories
Sharing rituals and values
Note that the actions listed above need not be simultaneous or continuous, as the give-and-take of family often takes place in unequal measure over long time horizons.
Who Should Apply
This opportunity is for individuals and/or collaborations (not organizations) across multiple disciplines with a focus on visual storytelling and family.
Residency: Applicants must be U.S. citizens (including those residing abroad) or U.S. tax residents authorized to work in the United States. They must also have a U.S. tax ID number or Social Security number, as well as 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.