NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theatre

Overview

The NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theatre was a signature initiative of the City of New York, administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) in partnership with the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME). The fund was established to directly address the underrepresentation of women in the entertainment industry by providing project grants to works made by, for, or about women across film, scripted and unscripted media, music recording and performance, and theatre.

The fund operated across multiple grant cycles and supported hundreds of projects by New York-based women creators. Projects funded through the Women's Fund have gone on to theatrical release, broadcast, festival recognition, and commercial distribution, demonstrating that the gap in production support for women-led work is a supply problem rather than a demand or quality problem.

What It Funds

The fund supported projects at development, production, and post-production stages across film and media. Eligible projects were those made by, for, or about all who identify as women -- with eligibility extended to projects featuring a woman director, a meaningful woman producer credit, a woman writer, or a strong woman's perspective in the subject matter.

Film categories included documentary, narrative fiction, short film, and scripted and unscripted television and digital content. Music and theatre categories ran alongside the film stream. Grant amounts varied by category and cycle.

Eligibility

Applicants were required to be based in New York City. Projects must have had a direct connection to women creators or women's perspectives as defined by the fund's criteria. Both organizations and individual artists were eligible to apply, with some categories requiring fiscal sponsorship for individual applicants.

Filmmakers should check the MOME and NYFA websites for the current status of the fund, as grant programs administered through city offices are subject to budget cycles and may be suspended or restructured between cycles.

Who Should Apply

New York City-based women filmmakers, producers, and media creators working on projects with a clear women's perspective or women's leadership -- particularly those at the production or post-production stage who need targeted support to complete work that might otherwise struggle to access mainstream institutional funding.

See Also

For building a film financing strategy that layers city arts funding with other sources, see Documentary Financing: Building Your Stack. For understanding how distribution deals affect women-led projects, see Distribution Deals: What Filmmakers Need to Know.