Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund - Arts in Health Initiative
$10-million multi-year initiative to support organizations working on health issues that impact New York communities. The initiative highlights the value of multiple artistic disciplines, including visual art, dance, music, theater, and film, and focuses on three main issues: mental health stigma, trauma, aging-related diseases, as well as caring for caregivers and frontline healthcare staff.
Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund — Arts in Health Initiative
Funder: Laurie M. Tisch Illumination FundProgram: Arts in HealthLocation: New York CityFunding Type: Philanthropic grants and partnershipsCurrent Application Status: Invitation only; no open application or deadline currently listed
Overview
The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund (LMTIF) Arts in Health Initiative supports organizations using the arts to improve health, healing, and well-being in New York communities. Launched in 2018 as a $10 million multi-year initiative, the program has supported work addressing mental health and stigma, trauma, aging-related diseases, health disparities, and access to arts-based health programming.
Following the initiative's first six years, LMTIF announced an expansion of its commitment in 2024 to $25 million, supporting a broader range of organizations working at the intersection of arts and healthcare across New York City.
Who & What They Fund
The initiative supports organizations and partnerships that use artistic and creative approaches to address health and well-being. Funded disciplines have included visual art, music, dance, theater, filmmaking, literary arts, textiles, murals, and other creative practices.
Grantees have included arts and cultural organizations as well as healthcare systems, social-service organizations, advocacy groups, mental-health providers, community-based nonprofits, and public agencies. The Fund places particular emphasis on underserved communities, populations experiencing health disparities, and communities disproportionately affected by mental-health challenges, trauma, and aging-related diseases.
Where
The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund focuses its grantmaking primarily on New York City and New Yorkers. Arts in Health projects have operated across healthcare facilities and community settings throughout the five boroughs.
Past Grantees & Projects
Arts in Health grantees have included:
- NYC Health + Hospitals — Arts in Medicine: Arts programming for patients, families, healthcare workers, and communities across NYC's public healthcare system. An initial $1.5 million, three-year grant helped establish a centralized Arts in Medicine department; the Fund subsequently provided $3 million in additional support.
- Arts & Minds: Visual arts programming for people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia and their caregivers.
- CaringKind — connect2culture®: Visual art, music, and dance programming for people with dementia and their caregivers.
- Dance for PD® / Mark Morris Dance Group: Dance programming for people with Parkinson's disease and their caregivers.
- Common Threads Project: Arts-based programming addressing trauma among refugees and survivors of gender-based violence.
- Community Access: Filmmaking addressing mental-health stigma among young people.
- Fountain House Gallery: Arts programming supporting people living with serious mental illness.
- Gibney Community Action: Arts-based programming addressing trauma and mental health.
- The Art Therapy Project
- Theater of War Productions
- Art Start
- Artistic Noise
- Dances For A Variable Population
- Queens Museum
- NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
The initiative's 2018–2024 portfolio includes many additional organizations spanning mental health, trauma, aging-related disease, and community health.
Application & Funding Process
Current Process: Invitation Only
The Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund does not currently accept unsolicited funding proposals. Its official proposal policy states that proposals are accepted by invitation only.
Rather than maintaining a standard annual application process, the Fund identifies and develops potential funding opportunities through targeted research, long-term partnerships, and networking with thought leaders. Organizations therefore cannot currently submit a general Arts in Health grant application without an invitation from the Fund.
There is currently no publicly listed Arts in Health application deadline or open RFP.
Previous Open Application Process
Although the Fund typically operates through invitation-only grantmaking, it has opened Arts in Health funding to public applications in the past.
In June 2021, LMTIF issued its first-ever Open Call Request for Proposals (RFP) to expand the Arts in Health Initiative with a focus on arts and mental health in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The opportunity targeted:
- NYC-based arts organizations
- Organizations working with marginalized communities
- Projects using the arts to raise awareness of or address mental health
- Small- to mid-sized organizations with annual budgets between $50,000 and $5 million
Recognizing the burden that lengthy grant applications can place on smaller organizations, the Fund used a streamlined application process beginning with a Letter of Inquiry (LOI) rather than requiring every interested organization to prepare a full proposal.
The Fund received 120 LOIs/submissions and selected 14 organizations with strong records of serving specific populations through strategic and realistic approaches.
This open RFP was an exception to LMTIF's typical invitation-only model. The Fund's retrospective on the initiative notes that the open call introduced it to innovative organizations and generated new partnerships that it might not otherwise have encountered through invitation-only grantmaking.
For Prospective Applicants
At present, organizations interested in Arts in Health funding should be aware that there is no standard application portal or open funding cycle. Because LMTIF develops initiatives through research, partnerships, and professional networks, relationship-building and alignment with the Fund's priorities may be important pathways toward future consideration.
Prospective applicants should also monitor the Fund for future open calls or RFPs. The 2021 Arts & Mental Health RFP demonstrates that LMTIF has opened competitive applications when expanding into particular priority areas, with an LOI serving as the first stage of the application process.
Current status: Invitation only. Unsolicited proposals: Not accepted. Current deadline: None. Previous open-call mechanism: Letter of Inquiry (LOI) → selection process. Future open calls: Possible, but none currently announced. Geographic priority: New York City. Contact: info@lmtif.org
