2025 TACA Pop-Up Grants Program

The 2025 TACA Pop-Up Grant is administered by The Arts Community Alliance (TACA), a private nonprofit organization based in Dallas, Texas. TACA’s mission is to invest in the vibrancy and resilience of the Dallas arts community. With a focus on flexibility and responsiveness, the TACA Pop-Up Grant initiative is structured to support unanticipated, innovative artistic programming that showcases creativity and elevates local talent across Dallas County. The grant underscores TACA’s ongoing effort to bolster the cultural landscape of North Texas by offering timely funding opportunities to artists and arts organizations. The TACA Pop-Up Grants are bi-monthly awards designed to recognize and support spontaneous or unique artistic efforts that reflect creativity, artistic impact, and inclusivity. The grant serves as both recognition and financial support for live, virtual, or multimedia artistic programming. Programs eligible for consideration must be unexpected in format or content, have a strong community or artistic impact, and reflect inclusivity through access, diverse representation, or relevance to marginalized voices and current events. Unlike typical grant programs, the Pop-Up Grant does not involve a traditional application process. Instead, nominations are made by an anonymous group of over 60 community volunteers, including TACA board members, artists, arts managers, and community leaders. These nominators identify qualifying programs based on defined evaluation criteria. Although arts organizations cannot apply directly, they may submit their upcoming programs for consideration via an online submission form. These submissions are reviewed by TACA staff for eligibility and distributed to nominators. Eligible applicants include nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations and fiscally-sponsored arts collectives whose programming takes place within Dallas County. The awarded programming must be artistic in nature and accessible to the public. Programs that are ineligible for funding include an organization’s full season, previously funded recurring events, educational programs not open to the public, and non-artistic community programs. Each award consists of up to $2,500 in unrestricted funds. Organizations with annual budgets under $5 million are also eligible for up to $5,000 in restricted Artist Bonus funds. These bonus funds must be distributed to local artists classified as either Key Artists (on-stage/featured creators) or Supporting Artists (backstage and production contributors) on a 2:1 basis within 30 days of fund receipt. Grant recipients are notified at the end of each bi-monthly cycle. Required post-award steps include completing a Grantee Information Survey with specific details on the artists involved and providing proof of payment for Artist Bonus disbursements. The award may be paid via ACH direct deposit or check upon request. Failure to meet reporting obligations may affect eligibility for future funding. TACA offers six nomination cycles annually. For 2025, deadlines occur in February, April, June, August, October, and December, with announcements made at the end of each cycle. For example, the nomination deadline for the July–August cycle is August 10, with awards announced on August 20. All dates are subject to change and updates are posted on the TACA website. Questions regarding the Pop-Up Grant program can be directed to Yadira “Yaya” Gonzalez, TACA’s Programs Associate, via email at yadira.gonzalez@taca-arts.org.