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Applications are open for the We Are Family Foundation Youth to the Front Fund: "The Creatives" Frontliners 2026. Click here to learn more about this opportunity and apply for it.
At this moment, when so many communities are navigating uncertainty, harm, and erasure, creative leaders are stepping forward as caretakers and catalysts. Through imagination, storytelling, and collective practice, they are grounding their work in community, challenging injustice, and helping shape paths toward dignity, healing, and equitable futures.
In landscapes marked by extraction and loss, they practice restoration as a creative and civic intervention: replanting, rebuilding, and reimagining what has been damaged. Recovery becomes a collective process. Preservation becomes an investment in continuity, belonging and long-term resilience.
They also embrace joy not as escape, but as intention. In gathering, performance, and shared cultural practice, they nurture connection and mutual care. They treat cultural heritage not as nostalgia, but as living knowledge that sustains languages, craft, music, and intergenerational wisdom while evolving with changing realities.
In 2026, Youth to the Front Fund is continuing their commitment to support young leaders whose work is creating real, measurable impact in the moment. They are calling in creatives and collectives who are shaping culture, shifting narratives, organizing communities through creativity, and strengthening the ecosystems, human and environmental, that sustain us all.
This opportunity seeks to:
Provide direct funding and strategic resources to support exhibitions, programs, research, and bold creative interventions that address systemic injustice and advance community-led solutions.
Cultivate a global community of creative organizers, cultural workers, and storytellers who are shaping culture while advancing equity, dignity, and long-term social impact.
Support Frontliners through cross-network collaboration, mentorship, visibility, and connection to critical partners across the arts, philanthropy, policy, and social justice sectors.
1. You should be a founding leader under 30 years old, whose work centers BIPOC communities and actively challenges systemic racism, inequality, inequity and injustice.
2. You should be working across:
PROJECTS SHOULD CENTER ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING PILLARS:
Arts & Social Justice
Creative practices that challenge injustice, shift narratives, and use art as a tool for collective healing, visibility, and transformation.
Civics & Community Engagement
Projects that strengthen civic participation, deepen democratic practice, and build collective power within communities.
Climate Justice
Initiatives that address environmental harm through community-led solutions rooted in equity, sustainability, and intergenerational care.
Education Equity
Work that expands access to inclusive, culturally responsive learning and removes barriers to opportunity for underserved communities.
Apply for We Are Family Foundation Youth to the Front Fund: "The Creatives" Frontliners
