CALI Futures
Forecasted
CALI Futures supports California artists and cultural workers researching and testing alternatives to conventional arts systems to advance financial sustainability, creative ownership, and mutual care.
Funder: Center for Cultural Innovation
Due Dates (Anticipated): August 2027 (Application deadline)
Funding Amounts: $5,000 project-restricted grants; $100,000 annually across the 2026–2028 funding cycle
Summary: Supports California artists and cultural workers advancing alternative efforts for financial sustainability, creative ownership, and mutual care.
Key Information: Applicants and every team member must be individual artists or cultural workers residing full-time in California.
Description
CALI Futures supports artists and cultural workers contributing to alternatives to conventional nonprofit and for-profit arts and culture systems. Administered by the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the program centers income, ownership, and care. Its goal is to improve conditions across the broader arts ecosystem, rather than fund one-off benefits for only a few participants.
The Fund supports work at every stage, from initial ideas and research through implementation, experimentation, and reflection. Examples include artwork barter exchanges for housing or healthcare, time-banking cultural services, collectively owned artist spaces, cooperative technology, shared intellectual-property income, and teach-ins on community-based economies. These efforts draw on mutualism, collectivity, and community, rather than maximizing profit or treating outside capital as the sole measure of success.
