William B. Pratt Endowment Fund

The William B. Pratt Endowment Fund was established as a legacy gift to the people of Montana to help them tell and share stories- especially the untold ones- about Montana's arts, culture, and history and to learn about the traditional art forms and cultures of Montana.

The 2024 grant cycle is open Friday, January 19 through Monday, April 1.

Each year, the fund awards grants to benefit Montana Indigenous, Folk, Traditional, and Media Arts. The William B. Pratt Endowment Fund will make grants to:

  • Build awareness, involvement, and preservation of Indigenous, Folk, and Traditional Arts in Montana.
  • Encourage the education about, as well as the production and presentation of, Media Arts in Montana.

Grants will range in size from $500 to $2,000. Small grant requests less than $750 can apply using a simplified application form. Grant applications will be accepted from early January to late March. Grant announcements will be made in April/May and grants awards will be issued in July.

Eligible applicants include 501(c)(3) Organizations and governments including local, state, and tribal governments. Individual artists and other entities may apply under a fiscal sponsorship.

Applicants are eligible to apply in one of two funding areas:

  • Media Arts Education programs
  • Montana’s Indigenous, Traditional, and Folk Arts

See a full list of the guidelines here for Media Arts here.

See a full list of the guidelines here for Indigenous, Folk, and Traditional Arts in Montana here.

Ready to apply for funding?

Apply now

Past Grantees

  • $2,000 to Montana Playwrights Network for the 4th Annual Winter Lodge Rendezvous which presents contemporary tribal oral traditions, ideologies, and worldview to create a new modern narrative that specifically features Montana American Indian performers who reshape what non-Natives know about American Indian People.
  • $2,000 A Voice: Art Visions & Outreach to Community Education. Production and distribution of a 200-page book of photography and writing by Two Eagle River School Indigenous students to honor the vision of these young photographers and writers. A copy will be sent gratis to each Flathead Nation community member, public and Tribal school, and Tribal college library in the state.
  • $1,000 Missoula Community Radio – A/VClub. This project will offer an intergenerational Media Arts Education learning opportunity to Western Montana practicing artists about technical topics in the audio and video arts.

  • $1,375 to Thresh Incorporated and Fort Peck Community College for First Voices, a digital storytelling project, working with students of reservation high schools and tribal colleges to create video-based performances of ancestral stories, which are published and distributed via an online portal.
  • $1,375 to Montana Playwrights Network for the 3rd Annual Winter Lodge Rendezvous which presents contemporary tribal oral traditions, ideologies, and worldview to create a new modern narrative that specifically features Montana American Indian performers who reshape what non-Natives know about American Indian People.
  • $500 to Lewis and Clark Foundation for the 2023 Festival/Anniversary event. Partnering with the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, the event will include several Native American interpreters and performing artists. 
  • $3,250 Extreme History Project: The Story of Us: The Women Who Shaped Montana. Two 30-minute documentations will feature six diverse and historic Montana women to help viewers better understand women’s roles in Montana history.
  • $1,250 Wild Excellence Films- Native Peoples’ Ancient Lives Revealed in the Greater Yellowstone. This documentary tells the developing, timely story that is occurring in the rugged Beartooth Mountains, the heart of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. In the cold, arid, picturesque plains, shadowy valleys, and the rocky elevations, ice patches are melting and revealing treasured artifacts.

  • $2,000 to Montana Playwrights Network (Clancy) to support live performances by Montana traditional tribal artists in the 2nd Annual Winter Lodge Rendezvous to be held on December 2 and 3 at the Helena Avenue Theatre.
  • $500 to the Lewis and Clark Foundation (Great Falls) to support the performance and interpretative activities of dancer Louie Plant Sr., Ksanka [Standing Arrow Band] of the Ktunaxa (Kootenai) Tribe of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes of the Flathead Nation, at the Lewis and Clark Festival.

  • $2,000 to the Playwrights Network to support episode 3 of a four-part radio series called “Montanans at Work”. The episode is titled “Montanans as Play: Humor in Indian Country” and explores how humor plays an important role in American Indian cultures and identity.
  • $1,800 to the Fork Peck Community College to support the Buffalo Chasers Podcast.
  • $1,700 to Big Sky Film Festival to support the Native Filmmakers Initiative Film Club.
  • $1,500 to the Blackfeet Community College to support Piikani oral history through songs.
  • $1,000 to the Big Sky Film Festival to support the documentary “When They Were Here,” a documentary on the Missing and Murdered Women and Girls crisis in Montana.

  • Myrna Loy (Helena)- $1,500 for Music of the Medicine Line, a 4-day festival about Metis music and culture that acknowledges the artistic, musical and social contributions of the Metis and Little Shell People to Montana.
  • Tobacco Valley Board of History (Eureka)- $500 for a History Suitcase on Hand Quilting to be used by local elementary, middle and K-8 schools, as well as by the local home school association.
  • Big Sky Film Festival (Missoula)- $1,500 for the Native Filmmakers Club that takes a selection of Indigenous-made documentary films and their filmmakers into classrooms across the state.

More About the Fund

The William B. Pratt Endowment Fund was established by William B. Pratt who has a life-long interest in Indigenous, Folk, and Traditional arts, with experience as a musician working in the folk tradition and as a living history and production artisan in forged iron. This fund also honors his work in documentary and industrial film/video production, fostering community video efforts, and his extensive experience in grants administration, the development of arts and nonprofit organizations, and fostering philanthropy in the state.

Learn more

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We're Here to Help

For additional help, questions or comments, contact Elisa Fiaschetti, Impact Programs Director.

406-441-4953 Email Elisa Fiaschetti