The Trust's annual competitive grant cycle for arts, heritage, and humanities nonprofit grant programs to:

• protect and stabilize Oregon's cultural resources;
• expand public awareness of, quality of, access to and participation in culture in Oregon; and
• ensure that Oregon cultural resources are strong and dynamic contributors to Oregon's communities and quality of life.

Cultural Development Grants recognize and support significant cultural programs and projects in four broad areas:

• Access: making culture broadly available to Oregonians
• Preservation: investing in Oregon's cultural heritage by recovering and preserving historic assets and achievements
• Creativity: the making and/or presentation of artistic or scholarly work, and the development of artists, cultural experts and scholars
• Capacity: the strengthening of cultural organizations to build stability and generate public confidence

The other two grant programs fund the Trust's five statewide partners and 45 county and tribal coalitions.

In considering funding requests, the Cultural Trust seeks proposals that will expand the public benefit of Oregon's culture through:

• positive impact on, or improvement of cultural resources and activities and expansion of public and private support for culture;
• preservation of the past or investing in the future, by commissioning new work that continues Oregon's strong artistic, literary and humanistic presence;
• enhancing cultural opportunity and understanding by creating or sustaining model programs that can be replicated elsewhere; and,
• by creating opportunity for every community to invest further in its culture, stimulating new ventures that could not be tried without Trust help.