Grant It to NKY
How $60,000 in grants is planting roots, building pride, and activating a region one neighborhood at a time
There's a stage in Ludlow, Kentucky, rising from the platform of a century-old rail tower. There's a bus rolling through Kenton County with a dancer on board. There's a farmers market in Covington where a family is stretching a canvas for the first time. And somewhere in Newport, a mural corridor is drawing people off the main road and into a story they didn't know their city was telling.
None of these things happen without investment. And that investment, in this case, belongs to ArtsWave and MeetNKY, who announced last week the award of $60,000 through nine Northern Kentucky Creative Placemaking Grants supporting arts and cultural heritage projects across Boone, Campbell, and Kenton counties.
This is the second cohort of a program that barely existed two years ago. The inaugural round in 2025 moved $58,000. The 2026 cohort moves $60,000 to nine organizations spanning African cultural heritage, Appalachian identity, free theater, transit-based performance, print journalism for LGBTQ+ voices, and public art. The range matters. The dollars matter. But what matters most is the philosophy behind the program: arts funding as a neighborhood-building strategy rather than an institutional charity.
What Creative Placemaking Actually Means
Creative placemaking is a term that gets thrown around at a lot of civic planning meetings, but the ArtsWave/MeetNKY framework gives it specific shape. Per ArtsWave's Blueprint for Collective Action -- a ten-year investment framework introduced in 2015 -- the goal is to deepen roots in the region, bridge cultural divides, and enliven neighborhoods through arts as a civic infrastructure tool. MeetNKY, as Northern Kentucky's Convention and Visitors Bureau, comes at the same work from a destination-development angle: arts-driven neighborhoods attract visitors, retain residents, and signal that a place is alive and worth spending time in.
The grant program runs on a tight structure: awards top out at $10,000 or 50 percent of project expenses, whichever is lower, with a 1:1 match requirement. Organizations may only receive one award per fiscal year and must sit out at least a year after two consecutive grants. The accountability structure is baked in from the start.
"These nine projects reflect what creative placemaking does at its best," said Alecia Kintner, president and CEO of ArtsWave. "It roots the arts in the neighborhoods where people already live, work and gather."
The Stories Behind the Numbers
Look past the grant amounts and the organizations in this cohort tell a genuinely compelling story about who Northern Kentucky is and what it wants to be.
Bi-Okoto Drum and Dance Theatre is one of the region's most established cultural institutions, founded in 1994, incorporated as a nonprofit in 1996, and currently touring in 48 states. The company has represented Nigeria internationally, performed at presidential welcomes in multiple European countries, and operates out of a 27,000-square-foot facility in Bond Hill with a 200-seat theater, dance studio, language lab, and artist housing. Their $7,500 award supports "Afrika On The Move," a traveling cultural festival that builds on a two-day model from the prior grant year, expanding engagement through the Boone County Public Library and adding a wellness and movement component.
The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition received the program's single largest award at $10,000 for its Woven Branches project. UACC traces its roots to the 1964 founding of the Main Street Bible Center, which served Appalachian migrants in Over-the-Rhine, and has been formally advocating for the urban Appalachian community in Greater Cincinnati for more than 60 years. Woven Branches targets young adults between 19 and 40, bringing them into collaborative visual art and writing projects built around themes of migration history, ancestry, home place, and oral storytelling traditions. In Kenton and Campbell counties, this project is building a cultural memory in a community that has often felt invisible in its own backyard.
Infinite Hills Productions earned $8,500 for The Rail Sessions, a live music series anchored at the Ludlow Railfan Tower and Heritage Museum campus. Six free performances run from August through October and March through May, pairing emerging acoustic artists with larger regional acts and using the historic caboose and rail infrastructure as storytelling platforms. Ludlow's rail and river history is the backdrop; music is the invitation to come see it.
ReNewport's Orchard Project ($5,000) continues the transformation of the Orchard Street Corridor in Newport, where three completed murals now anchor a stretch connecting local creative businesses. The 2026 phase focuses on programming: weekend markets, flea markets, business crawls, and mural dedications designed to activate the alleyway year-round.
Pones brings their "Ride with an Artist Day" back to TANK bus routes for $7,000, reimagining a project they first ran a decade ago. The updated version concentrates the concept into a single high-impact day, with dancers, musicians, and visual artists simultaneously boarding multiple routes. The project's premise is one of the most elegant in the cohort: bring art to riders rather than expecting riders to come to art.
| Organization | Project | Award |
|---|---|---|
| African Women Alliance | Creative Roots: A Heritage Skills Workshop | $5,000 |
| Bi-Okoto Drum & Dance Theatre | Afrika On The Move: Expanding Cultural Connections & Community Wellbeing | $7,500 |
| Infinite Hills Productions, Inc. | The Rail Sessions | $8,500 |
| Pones | Ride with an Artist Day | $7,000 |
| Queer Kentucky, Inc. | NKY Anthology Print Magazine | $3,500 |
| ReNewport | The Orchard Project | $5,000 |
| Southbank Shakespeare | Southbank Shakespeare Summer Season | $7,500 |
| The Center for Great Neighborhoods | Arts at the Market | $6,000 |
| Urban Appalachian Community Coalition | UACC Place Keepers – Woven Branches Project | $10,000 |
| Total | $60,000 | |
Inclusion as Infrastructure
Two of the nine projects address communities that have historically had to fight for visibility in the arts funding ecosystem.
Queer Kentucky received $3,500 to produce an NKY Anthology Print Magazine, a physical publication featuring LGBTQ+ artists who call Northern Kentucky home. Distribution will be free through partner venues including Roebling Books, Leaping Lizards Art Gallery, Treehouse Cincy, and the Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar. In a media landscape that has tilted almost entirely digital, the choice to produce something tangible and collectible is itself a statement.
The African Women Alliance's Creative Roots workshop series ($5,000) centers African and African-diaspora artistic traditions with free, family-friendly classes in braiding, sewing, textile arts, cooking, painting, and instrument and dance traditions. AWA specifically serves African immigrants in NKY navigating the challenges of adaptation and integration, providing arts access as a tool for community cohesion across Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties.
What Makes This Partnership Work
The ArtsWave/MeetNKY model is worth examining beyond the individual projects. It connects two organizations with different mandates -- arts funding and tourism development -- around a shared theory of change: that arts investment in neighborhood-scale projects produces both civic pride and economic vitality. MeetNKY's stake in the program is that creative neighborhoods and public art activation draw visitors and keep residents invested. ArtsWave's stake is that those same projects fulfill the Blueprint goals of deepening roots and enlivening neighborhoods.
The result is a funding mechanism that rewards organizations proposing specific, place-rooted programming with clear community ties -- not abstract artistic merit, but the question of what happens to a neighborhood when this project exists.
"Arts and culture are central to how people experience and connect with Northern Kentucky," said Julie Kirkpatrick, president and CEO of MeetNKY. "These projects energize public spaces, reflect the character of our communities, and make Northern Kentucky a more compelling place to live and visit."
What Comes Next
Funded projects run through May 31, 2027. The application window for the next cohort will open in early 2027, with organizations awarded in both 2025 and 2026 required to sit out a cycle.
The question the program will need to answer over the next few years is scaling. Nine projects across three counties at $60,000 is a meaningful start, but Northern Kentucky is a region with a lot of neighborhoods and a growing demand for exactly this kind of investment. The match requirement and per-organization cap mean dollars are spread thoughtfully. The year-off rule means new organizations cycle in. The roster of returning grantees -- Bi-Okoto, Southbank Shakespeare, and ReNewport all received funding in 2025 as well -- suggests programs that are proving their impact and strengthening year over year.
For now, the rail platform in Ludlow has its music. The bus in Kenton County has its dancer. The corridor in Newport has its murals. And the region has a funding mechanism that is taking the cultural identity of Northern Kentucky seriously, one neighborhood at a time.
For the full list of funded projects, visit artswave.org/NKY.