The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation builds on the creativity and boldness of its founding artist. Our philanthropic programs aspire to support an artistically vibrant, equitable, and sustainable world.

Robert Rauschenberg’s practice demonstrated that artistic innovation emerges when people collaborate across disciplines, when artists have the financial stability to take creative risks, and when cultural institutions are strong enough to support experimentation over time. By investing in collaboration, resilience, and institutional sustainability, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation seeks to strengthen the conditions that allow artists and cultural organizations to imagine, create, and contribute to a more interconnected world.

Our philanthropic efforts are based on three core funding initiatives: Collaboration, Change, and Institutional Development.

Collaboration
Rauschenberg believed that creativity emerged through exchange across cultures, disciplines, and technologies. Throughout his career, he worked alongside other artists and dancers, engineers, musicians, and printmakers around the world. These encounters fundamentally reshaped what collaboration could mean in contemporary art. This funding initiative supports art collectives, cross-disciplinary collaborations, exhibitions, and multi-institutional initiatives connecting artists, curators, researchers, designers, and cultural organizations. Building on Rauschenberg’s collaborative spirit, it encourages practitioners of all types to work with each other and to work outside of the rigidity of mediums and fields as Rauschenberg so often did, leading to greater experimentation, innovation, and possibilities.

Change
In 1970, Robert Rauschenberg established Change, Inc., a nonprofit foundation to assist professional artists in all disciplines in need of emergency medical aid and, later, for emergency financial assistance for unexpected life-changing events. Inspired by Rauschenberg’s environmental activism and commitment to supporting artists, this initiative helps artists and cultural workers facing a range of crises by investing in partners that provide stability while sustaining their creative practices.

Institutional Development
In 2027, the Foundation will launch the Institutional Development Program, a professional initiative designed exclusively for previous Foundation grantee organizations to strengthen their organizational capacity and long-term impact. Over the years, the Foundation has been inspired by the creativity, leadership, and community impact demonstrated by our grantees, while also recognizing the challenges organizations face in sustaining their work amid evolving financial, operational, and staffing realities. This seminar series is intended to provide practical tools, peer learning opportunities, and dedicated time for reflection and planning to support each participant organization's long-term health and resilience.
 

Ongoing Grant Programs

Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants
Administered through NYFA, this program provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 for recent unexpected medical, dental, and mental health emergencies to artists in financial need who are creating in the visual arts, film/video/electronic/digital arts, and choreography. Only generative artists are eligible—artists creating their own, independent work, with recent and ongoing opportunities for the public to experience that work.

Rauschenberg Dancer Emergency Grants
Administered through NYFA, this program provides one-time grants of up to $3,000 to eligible dancers facing dire financial emergencies, due to the loss or lack of recent/current live performance work, because of circumstances outside of their control. Common circumstances include cancelled performances, cutbacks or cancellations of dance engagement contracts, loss of touring opportunities, and ongoing shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact.

SouthArts
In 2025, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation awarded a grant to SouthArts to support its Southern Arts Relief and Recovery Fund and expand its Arts Readiness, Relief and Recovery program. Building on the legacy of Rauschenberg's Change, Inc., the nonprofit he founded in 1970 to provide emergency assistance to artists, this grant provides direct assistance to artists affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in FEMA-designated areas of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Individual awards of up to $1,000 help artists recover their practices and studios following natural disasters.

Support for Captiva Residency Alumni/ae
Following the sunsetting of the Captiva Residency in 2026, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is expanding its commitment to the program's alumni/ae through new grantmaking, public programming, and other initiatives that support their creative practices and strengthen connections across a global community of more than 500 artists. The Foundation is investing in alumni/ae through exhibition and publication support, awards, public conversations, documentary films, and opportunities for collaboration, professional development, and creative exchange. These efforts reflect the Foundation's long-term commitment to this community and affirm the enduring impact of the Captiva Residency, whose alumni/ae continue to advance Robert Rauschenberg's vision of an equitable, sustainable, and artistically vibrant world.

This commitment is already taking shape. During Rauschenberg’s Centennial year, the Foundation supported alumna Tomashi Jackson’s exhibition of work produced in Captiva at The Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, placing her contemporary practice in conversation with Rauschenberg’s legacy. The exhibition marked an early milestone in the Foundation’s commitment to alumni/ae and was followed by support for eleven Captiva alumni/ae participating in the 61st International Art Exhibition, In Minor Keys, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh for the 2026 Venice Biennale. 

The Foundation is also introducing new platforms to celebrate and connect its alumni/ae. The one-time Rauschenberg Centennial Award, given this year, recognized four Captiva residents whose exceptional achievements in the fields of art, performance, photography, and writing exemplify the creative legacy of Robert Rauschenberg and the residency program. This fall, the Foundation will launch a public program in partnership with the Catharsis Art Foundation at Atelier Jolie in New York City, featuring a series of conversations with alumni/ae. Across the country, former residents have also joined panel discussions in conjunction with the publication of I Don’t Think About Being Great: Selected Writings by Robert Rauschenberg (Yale University Press, 2025). Beginning in late 2026 through 2027, three Art21 documentaries will premiere, each centering the work and stories of former residents.