Published November 11, 2025 · The Digital Desk at America Publishers
$50 Million Literary Arts Fund Launches to Empower Nonprofit Writers and Publishers
Led by the Mellon Foundation, a coalition of major U.S. philanthropies joins forces to sustain and uplift the nation’s nonprofit literary community over the next five years.
In a moment when the literary world faces mounting financial pressures, seven major U.S. foundations have come together to launch an ambitious initiative: the Literary Arts Fund, a new $50 million commitment to sustain and strengthen nonprofit literary organizations across the nation. Led by the Mellon Foundation, the coalition includes the Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and an anonymous donor.
Over the next five years, this collective fund aims to nurture the vital ecosystem that supports writers, publishers, and readers outside the commercial mainstream, those who give voice to stories that challenge, comfort, and inspire. The fund represents a major joint investment in the literary arts, signaling a renewed belief that literature remains central to cultural identity, critical discourse, and the preservation of creative freedom.
The Literary Arts Fund is the result of an extraordinary partnership among seven influential philanthropic organizations, each long recognized for advancing culture, education, and the arts. Spearheaded by the Mellon Foundation, the coalition also includes the Ford Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, Lannan Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and one anonymous benefactor. Together, they represent decades of collective support for creative freedom, social progress, and cultural preservation. The Fund is fiscally sponsored by the National Center for Civic Innovation (NCCI).
This alliance marks a defining moment in arts philanthropy, uniting organizations that have traditionally operated independently into a single shared mission: to reinforce the infrastructure that keeps literature alive. Their collaboration underscores a growing awareness that sustaining the literary ecosystem requires collective, long-term effort rather than isolated gestures of generosity. Each foundation’s contribution to the initial $50 million pool forms the backbone of what is envisioned as a lasting resource for the writers and publishers who shape America’s cultural conscience.
At its core, the Literary Arts Fund was created to protect and expand the spaces where literature thrives beyond commercial boundaries. The coalition’s shared vision is to sustain organizations that elevate writers often overlooked by mainstream publishing, those whose voices reveal new dimensions of identity, history, and imagination. Through multi-year grants, the Fund will support literary nonprofits, small presses, and community publishers that nurture storytelling as both an art form and a public good.
“The literary arts give voice to who we are as a people,” said Elizabeth Alexander, poet and president of the Mellon Foundation. “Novelists, poets, and all manner of creative writers shape and drive our collective discourse and capacity for invention and imagination.”
Her words reflect the guiding belief behind the initiative: that literature is not merely entertainment, but an essential force that deepens empathy, preserves truth, and strengthens the moral fabric of society. The Fund’s mission is both pragmatic and poetic, a lifeline for creativity itself.
Guiding the new initiative is Jennifer Benka, a respected literary leader whose career has been devoted to elevating poets, writers, and the organizations that sustain them. As the former executive director of both the Academy of American Poets and Poets & Writers, Benka brings a unique blend of creative insight and administrative expertise to her new role as founding executive director of the Literary Arts Fund.
Throughout her career, she has championed equitable access to the arts, expanded opportunities for emerging voices, and strengthened nonprofit literary networks nationwide. Her appointment signals the coalition’s commitment not only to funding literature, but to nurturing it strategically, with guidance from someone who understands both the artistry and infrastructure behind it. Under Benka’s leadership, the Fund aims to bridge passion and sustainability, ensuring that the institutions supporting writers continue to thrive in an ever-shifting cultural and economic landscape.
The launch of the Literary Arts Fund arrives at a time when the nonprofit literary sector faces mounting financial strain. Earlier this year, the federal government enacted sweeping cuts to arts funding, reducing critical grants that once sustained local arts councils, small publishers, and creative writing programs. In response, the Mellon Foundation has repeatedly stepped in to fill the gap, including a $15 million emergency award to state humanities councils in April and a $1.4 million grant to PEN America in August.
Meanwhile, independent publishers and literary nonprofits are contending with rising production costs, shrinking distribution channels, and the aftershocks of a digital-first economy that often overlooks literary expression. The new Fund serves as both a response and a solution, designed to stabilize organizations at risk of being silenced by financial pressures. In an era defined by uncertainty, this coalition’s unified action offers something rare: sustained hope and tangible support for the storytellers who shape America’s conscience.
Beyond its founding members, the Literary Arts Fund is designed as an open invitation to other philanthropic partners. Its companion initiative, the Literary Arts Funders Collaborative, extends a call for continued investment in the nation’s creative infrastructure. Already, major contributors such as the Houston Endowment, Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Fund of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation have joined the effort, signaling growing momentum within the arts community.
Brenda Coughlin, executive director of the Lannan Foundation, expressed her hope that this collaboration will “invite in and encourage” more organizations to contribute, noting that less than 2% of all arts philanthropy in the U.S. currently supports literary causes. Through this cooperative model, the Fund aims to transform isolated acts of giving into a sustainable movement, one where every donation strengthens a shared cultural mission to keep literature accessible, diverse, and alive for generations to come.
For writers, editors, and small publishers, the creation of the Literary Arts Fund represents more than financial relief, it signals recognition. The Fund acknowledges the often-invisible labor behind independent presses, journals, and nonprofit literary houses that give marginalized voices a platform. Many of these organizations operate on limited budgets, yet they remain essential spaces for experimentation, mentorship, and community storytelling.
By investing directly in these networks, the Fund aims to ensure that creative risk, diversity, and literary excellence continue to flourish outside the mainstream market. Emerging writers will gain access to stronger support systems, while established authors will find renewed institutional backing for projects that challenge and redefine cultural narratives. The Fund’s ripple effect could mean the survival of small magazines, the revival of local residencies, and the continued discovery of voices that might otherwise go unheard, a quiet revolution in how America values its literary heart.
Applications for the Literary Arts Fund officially open on November 10, 2025, inviting U.S.-based nonprofit or fiscally sponsored literary organizations to apply. Eligible applicants include those supporting contemporary writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and hybrid literary forms. The Fund encourages organizations that serve underrepresented communities, experimental literature, and educational programming to submit proposals.
Full eligibility guidelines and submission instructions are available at literaryartsfund.org. Grants will be awarded through the Fund’s annual open call; applications open November 10. In a field often defined by scarcity, the Literary Arts Fund offers something new: a chance for sustainability, creativity, and vision to grow hand in hand.
The Literary Arts Fund is more than an act of philanthropy; it is a collective reaffirmation that literature still matters in an age of distraction. Every poem, essay, and story nurtured through this initiative will echo far beyond its pages, reminding readers of our shared humanity. By uniting the nation’s most influential foundations under one mission, this movement transforms generosity into preservation. It safeguards the voices that interpret who we are and who we may become. In strengthening the institutions behind the art, the Fund ensures that imagination remains not just alive, but actively shaping the world ahead.
Sources: Publishers Weekly and the Mellon Foundation Press Release. Read more at PublishersWeekly.com and Mellon.org.