The National Endowment for the Arts offers grants for media arts projects that promote access to artistic excellence. The endowment awards grants to media projects that show innovation by generating ways to create art, demonstrating new directions in the field or new ways to use creative resources. Projects that enable arts organizations and artists to expand and diversify their audiences or enhance the effectiveness of arts organizations and the arts can apply for the grant. According to the NEA, these projects may include documentary work. However, with a limited number of exceptions, the endowment is not allowed to award direct grants to individuals.
The International Documentary Association lists documentary filmmaking grants, both with and without deadlines, from various states and major organizations such as the Playboy Foundation and the Film Arts Foundation. The association lists over 60 grants without deadlines and also maintains a calendar of deadlines for other grants. Each grant listing has an overview of the grant with information about the organization, target film type, location and award amount.
The Independent Feature Project, or IFP, is the largest membership organization of independent filmmakers. Each year the IFP awards grants to alumni of the organization's Independent Filmmaker Lab Finishing program. In 2010, a $90,000 award to cover the expense of post-production, artistic and legal assistance to complete and launch projects into the film festival circuit was split between 2 grantees.
The Sundance Institute an internationally recognized nonprofit organization that provides resources for independent film, theater and musical arts producers. The institute's Documentary Film Program provides assistance for filmmakers through educational workshops and awards grants to nonfiction filmmakers through the Sundance Documentary Fund. In 2010, the institute awarded a total of $500,000 in grants to filmmakers in China, Pakistan, South Africa, Russia, Guatemala, Israel, Ukraine, Colombia and the United States.
Many state government departments and programs offer grants to fund documentaries that are produced within the granting state's borders. Some grants may pool grant funding from federal arts programs, the state and other organizations. For example, the New York Foundation for the Arts offers grant funding that totals more than $11 million to individual artists in the state of New York. A state's humanities or arts department or program can provide information about documentary film grants in individual states.