Writer Claire Willett on how Trump upended federal grants for the arts and journalism

On February 6, Claire Willett was in the middle of writing an application for a National Endowment for the Arts grant on behalf of the Portland Opera when she received a press release that would completely upend her work. 

There were two big announcements from the NEA: First, the Challenge America program, which awarded $10,000 grants to smaller organizations, typically going to underserved communities, was canceled. Second, they were scrapping the first round of applications for the Grants for Arts Projects—in the middle of the open application cycle—pending new guidelines. While previous guidelines had a long list of suggested topics for applicants, the press release highlighted just one. 

“Under the updated guidelines, the NEA continues to encourage projects that celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring the semiquincentennial of the United States of America (America250).” 

Willett says she was shocked, worried, and confused. She recalls thinking: “They’re pushing us all towards patriotism theater. This is some shady shit.” 

But the changes were even more insidious than they seemed, and at first, it was only grant writers working in the depths of the application who saw it. What eventually became public knowledge was new language added to the Assurance of Compliance page, which was not included in the press release but linked to text buried in the application. Through this new language, applicants would be required to comply with all presidential executive orders—not only within the project with which they sought funding but across the board. Organizations that engaged with any DEI efforts or “gender ideology” would not be considered. 

Grants for Arts Projects and Challenge America were the two programs highlighted in the press release, but this alignment and enforcement with executive orders seemed to apply to all NEA funding, including Creative Writing Fellowships, which are awarded to individual writers in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Through its variety of funding programs, the NEA awarded nearly $36.8 million in awards at the start of 2025. The National Endowment for the Humanities, which announced $22.6 million in funding for arts projects in January, also added compliance to executive orders to their application restrictions.

Willett urged writers seeking any kind of federal funding from the NEA or NEH to proceed with caution. She was planning on applying to a Creative Writing Fellowship for herself this year, but decided not to when she learned of the executive order restrictions.

The weekend following the press release, Willett emailed Oregon ArtsWatch about covering these changes. As a grant writer, Willett had deep knowledge of how restrictions against “gender ideology” and DEI could devastate arts and culture nationally, not only through these specific NEA grants but in how funding and ideologies trickle down to local organizations. 

On her blog, Willett detailed the complicated moral considerations that have always plagued funding in the arts. Regardless of how the new restrictions played out, it seemed that decision-makers at the highest level had complied with the notion that trans and queer stories and marginalized voices should not be supported. 

Oregon Arts Watch saw the urgency in the NEA story and the countless branching narratives about artists and arts organizations attempting (or not) to uphold inclusive values and meaningful art under the Trump administration. So they asked Willett to come on as a regular contributor. 

In the weeks following the initial press release, the news caught up. Outrage among artists and arts organizations spread quickly. On February 18, hundreds of artists signed a letter sent to the NEA, demanding rollbacks on the new restrictions. On March 6, the ACLU of Rhode Island filed a suit against the NEA on behalf of several community-based arts organizations, including Rhode Island Latino Arts and the National Queer Theater. The next day, the NEA and NEH removed the certification requirement regarding "gender ideology" while the case is pending. 

Even after the injunction on these new terms, Willett said she still wouldn't be applying for herself in this round. 

“Personally, I don’t feel comfortable as a queer writer throwing my hat in the ring until a judge definitively overturns it. And I would still caution particularly trans/nonbinary writers to approach this with extreme caution because things could change again at any time.” 

Similarly, Electric Literature, a nonprofit literary publication that has received NEA support since 2016, announced it would not be seeking further funding and launched a fundraising campaign to make up the gap. "Electric Literature stands with trans writers and readers, and will continue to fiercely advocate for their rights, protection, and the full expression of their humanity," Executive Director Halimah Marcus wrote.  

While there are many funding and career advancement opportunities available to writers and artists that are not tied to federal funding, Willett worries about the precedent this sets for decisions that are often made behind closed doors. It will take committed journalists following funding and philanthropy across the country to track the ripple effects. 

Willett’s first piece for Oregon ArtsWatch was a detailed timeline of the changes and the implications for writers, artists, and arts organizations across the country. I spoke to Willett about her work and the sudden urgency for more arts and philanthropy coverage as funders pull back from platforming the voices that most need to be heard right now. (Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.) 

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How did you first get involved  in arts philanthropy? 

My degree is in theater, and I’ve always been in the arts administration field. I fell into grant writing as a lot of artists do. For over twenty years, I’ve been writing grants. And I’ve really specialized in arts organizations. That’s where my heart is. 

How did covering this story about NEA changes evolve into this new role for Oregon ArtsWatch?

[The NEA changes] really landed in my lap when I was in the middle of an application that we now couldn't finish because it was for equity-centered projects. 

I know the staff at Oregon ArtsWatch pretty well. It was started by a coalition of folks who [wrote for] The Oregonian, back in the day when they had a phenomenally robust arts section, before local newspapers all got bought up and stripped for parts; everyone who left during that wave left to start this organization. 

So I reached out to the executive editor, Laura Grimes, and I said, “Hey, I think this is a story that needs a journalist on it. We’re past the point where people will answer questions for Claire, the grant writer.” 

Laura and I got together for coffee and talked for hours about the NEA and all of the potential impacts on arts organizations and nonprofits. And she was telling me how they get all these press releases and pitches that are in the philanthropy sector. She said I know there are stories we’re losing because none of us has a fundraising background. 

These [philanthropy] stories are important to me. When I was coming up in the ranks, no one ever talked about about the complicated ethics of fundraising. 

How do you decide when to say no to that check because it comes with strings attached, or because you don't want to be in business with the kind of person who is holding on to the purse strings? Or you take the money and you hold your nose, because what you're going to do with it is feels sufficiently important. The ethical math is different every time. 

So how do we hold the philanthropic sector accountable? As a grant writer, as a queer person in Trump’s America, it’s important to me across the board. 

What stories are you focused on right now? 

The NEA is the biggest, most time-sensitive story. But there’s a ton of stuff they want to cover at OAW. On the local level, there were big changes this year in Oregon’s arts funding. 

One thing I’m excited about, is how we’ve already found three private Oregon foundations that have made really intentional shifts in their grant making as a response to the Trump executive orders and the changes at the NEA. They’re basically saying we’re going to fund equity harder because we know that people we support are going to have a harder and harder time accessing the government grants they used to rely on for their programming. That’s important to cover, as a medicine against despair, but also so that people in the arts community know who are the funding entities who are on this journey with them. 

There have been so many details to keep up with as this NEA story has unfolded. It’s confusing, but it’s also a very emotional situation for a lot of people, especially for someone like you who has a connection to the arts from so many angles. What has this news felt like for you personally? 

I think why it made me so really deeply angry as a queer person, is for myself and for so many queer and trans people I know, the arts were what saved you. The arts are where you find yourself when you don't fit in anywhere else. And the arts are a way to really put an audience member into somebody else's shoes, whose life is totally different. And this is the total erasure of a whole category of people from access to resources. Meanwhile the NEA’s whole website is full of this lofty language about the arts being for all Americans. 

So now the NEA changes are being covered nationally. But it seems like what we need to worry about is the trickle-down impact on local organizations in places that no longer have an arts journalist at their local paper. Do you have any advice for journalists who maybe aren’t experts in the arts scene but see this as an urgent story that needs more coverage—what should we be looking for? 

I think the elephant in the room is that the arts are treated like a luxury thing—a trivial thing. The NEA is one of the government’s smallest agencies. We’re also watching healthcare stripped away and like, are we going to go to war with Europe? So how do we position the conversation about the arts as an important component of everything else that is happening? What’s more important, vaccines or theater? But that’s a false premise. 

We have to remind people that free expression in the arts is the bellwether of whether you have a democracy or not. If we’re policing what artists can say, it’s already too late. That’s what authoritarianism looks like, and it starts with artists. 

This is where journalists being in conversation with people on the ground is really important. At the ground level, where the work gets produced, it’s a much messier conversation.

So, for example, the NEA putting a thing in their regulations that says no art by trans people—that’s just one piece of this conversation. The other piece is all the theater companies across America that are reviewing plays for next season, and they just quietly slide the ones by trans playwrights or featuring trans characters into the discard pile. It’s behind closed doors, and we’ll only notice it years from now. 

Holding the machinery accountable—that’s really important. 

How will you be looking for those pieces at ArtsWatch? 

I’m excited [to have] the conversation about where the money comes from. I think it’s important to admit that our funders have an enormous amount of control over the arts landscape—because new work is risky. As journalists, we have to keep our eye on the field. If you’re a journalist in a town with a small but vibrant arts and culture scene, it’s important that you’re in conversation with leaders of that community. How are they using their platform to champion the kind of voices that are being silenced elsewhere? 

If you notice come spring, when everyone is announcing their first full season in this Trump presidency, and there’s no mention of trans people, no mention of Gaza, no mention of immigrants—then that’s an important story. 

For my first article [for OAW], I really wanted to highlight how every step of the way, there were artists and arts organizations fighting back. I think it’s important for people to know that the arts community was on it right away. People were giving their grants back. That’s not normal. People were saying I’d rather reject a $40,000 grant than be associated with the stuff that’s happening. 

There was something really beautiful in that. It’s worth highlighting how artists have always been integral to the work of resistance. 

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Britany Robinson is a travel, environment, and arts writer who spent the last decade in Portland, Oregon, covering and exploring the Pacific Northwest. She’s authored Lonely Planet guidebook chapters to Southern Oregon, Connecticut, and Rhode Island and recently relocated to Connecticut. Her work has been published in Atmos, Fast Company, The Washington Post, and many more. She also runs the newsletter Wild Writing where she publishes essays and resources on writing about place.