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Commission reports record grant applications and 79 panels for FY26 review
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Summary
The grants office said FY26 panels will total 79 and include 1,551 applicants — a roughly 12% increase over the prior year — and reminded potential panelists and applicants of deadlines.
Terrell Johnson, senior grants officer for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, told commissioners on July 21 that the agency received a record number of grant applications for FY26 and is convening extensive panel review this summer.
Johnson said FY26 summer grant lines closed June 26 and that summer panels would begin July 29 and run into mid‑August. The grants team plans to convene 79 panels to review approximately 1,551 applications, which Johnson said is about a 12% increase over last year.
He provided program‑level counts: general operating support (GOS) had 10 panels and 247 applicants; East Arts had 2 panels and 43 applicants; projects, events and festivals included 12 panels with 58 organizational and 187 individual applicants; humanities fellowship had an anticipated 43 panels with 833 applications; capital projects had six panels with 89 applicants; field trip experiences had 2 panels and 31 applicants; and arts and humanities education projects (AHEP) had 4 panels with 63 applicants.
Johnson asked for help recruiting panelists and directed interested experts to dcarts.dc.gov and to contact Kayla Williams for more information. He also said the grants team is preparing a FY27 grants revamp meeting scheduled for Nov. 21 and invited commissioners to submit suggestions for the grant review process.
The commission emphasized that July 1 had been the cutoff for applicants who did not submit required paperwork and that it is considering moving that cutoff to May 1 for the next fiscal year. The agency also noted plans for nearly 2,000 applications across grants and public art combined and that panels will use both virtual and in‑person review stages.
