The Moody Foundation Is Giving Out $100K in Dallas Art Grants This Year. Here's How to Get One.

Dallas sure is Moody, and that's a good thing.

The Moody family name appears on buildings at Southern Methodist University (Moody Coliseum) and in the Arts District (Moody Performance Hall) and belongs to the $10 million Moody Fund for the Arts endowment, which for the first time this year is providing $100,000 in grants to small Dallas arts groups.

"MFA was created to provide grants to small and emerging Dallas arts groups that are supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs and have annual budgets of $1 million or less," reads a press release by the AT&T Performing Arts Center, which is also supported by the Moody Foundation.

Some of the suggested uses of the grant money are commissions, support for new works, projects that address cultural equity and access to the arts, operational and production costs, and artist-in-residency programs.

The press release also outlines ways the grant money may not be used, all of which are quite reasonable. These include fundraising, political campaigns, private performances, travel expenses for individuals, athletic teams or religious organizations.

Applications for grants will be accepted online from Feb. 20 through March 15. The application website is still under construction but "will be announced shortly," the press release says.

No grants over $7,500 will be given to any one organization. The winners will be revealed in June and decided by a panel of "arts educators, managers, advocates, philanthropists, a Cultural Affairs Commissioner and the director of the Office of Cultural Affairs."

William L. Moody Jr. and his wife, Libbie Rice Shearn Moody, started the Galveston-based Moody Foundation in 1942. The Moodys made their money in finance and left their estate, today worth nearly $2 billion, to the foundation in hopes that it would enrich the lives of future Texans.

In addition to the $10 million Moody Fund for the Arts, the Moody Foundation recently gave $12 million to the AT&T Performing Arts Center, which has been struggling financially. In return, this year ATTPAC renamed its Dallas City Performance Hall in the Moodys' honor.

There will be informational meetings about the Moody grants at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 8, at Moody Performance Hall (2520 Flora St.) and 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11, at the South Dallas Cultural Center (3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave.). RSVP at ticketdfw.com.