Working Assumptions Project Grants

2025 Project Grant

Each year, Working Assumptions awards six $10,000 Project Grants to support visual storytelling that inspires audiences and/or participants to look at family in new, meaningful ways. We invite proposals that employ photography and 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. 

The application deadline for 2025 is May 15th.

Learn more about Working Assumptions Project Grants at
https://www.workingassumptions.org/grants

About the Grants: We offer six $10,000 grants to support visual storytelling projects that inspire audiences and/or participants to look at family in new 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 the project is intended for public consumption and work on it began prior to the grant application deadline. The grant term is eight months: September 15 to May 15.
 
What We Fund: Projects may range from photography series and books to public art projects, therapeutic approaches, long-form journalism, educational initiatives, 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

 
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 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.
 
How to Apply: Applications must include personal details, a resume/CV, examples of the current project, related past work, a project description, and a budget. The application window is between April 15 and May 15. Awardees will be notified in August and publicly announced in September.
 

About Working Assumptions & Our Mission
Working Assumptions is a cultural non-profit that explores the everyday
give-and-take of family and care through visual storytelling, encouraging reflection
and dialogue about the nature of family itself. We work specifically with
photography and photo-based narratives to convey the complex emotions and
interpersonal dynamics of caregiving.
We are particularly interested in projects that employ first-person narration and
engage audiences in thought-provoking ways.

Application portal link: https://workingassumptions.grantplatform.com/