The Missoula Community Foundation’s Legacy of Living Art (LoLA) Fund is accepting 2026 applications for projects that use creativity to support healing, wellness, respite, social connection, and community wellbeing. The program prioritizes hands-on artmaking in group or community settings and projects that culminate in collaborative or individual artwork.
Deadline and funding
Applications are open from August 15 through September 30, 2026. The controlling public materials do not publish an exact closing clock time or time zone. The LoLA Committee expects to fund approximately two to three projects using about $5,000 in total available 2026 funds. The current guidelines state that there is no fixed award floor or ceiling.
Who may apply
Artists and organizations proposing creative projects that advance healing and connection may apply. The 2026 application materials emphasize work in Missoula and evaluate whether applicants have ready access to a defined audience. Organizations that received a LoLA grant in the prior cycle are not eligible to apply again until one grant cycle has passed.
Program priorities and review criteria
Projects are evaluated for positive impact on individuals and the broader community, strength of the implementation plan, access to a defined audience, clarity and feasibility of the proposal, a plan to share the work with the larger community, and the use of artistic expression as a means of healing with effects that extend beyond individual participants.
The fund continues the mission of Living Art, a Missoula nonprofit that provided free art workshops for people in Western Montana facing cancer, acute or chronic illness, treatment effects, and significant loss before transitioning its resources to grantmaking.
Atlas analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 64/100. The program is legitimately health-adjacent because its stated purpose includes healing, chronic illness, cancer, trauma, loss, veterans, youth, wellness, and community connection. Its relatively small total funding pool limits scale for healthcare organizations.
N9+ Fit: 0/100. The approximately $5,000 total arts-focused grant pool does not support a defensible clinical-device pathway. Dr. Miltie direct-applicant and direct-vendor fit are likewise 0/100. Atlas should not force a technology or device use case into this opportunity.
The funder does not publish an exact closing clock time or time zone for September 30, so Atlas preserves those facts as unknown and does not infer them. Publication is not blocked by an unpublished clock time or time zone. Any applicant-specific outreach still requires all current Montana contact, eligibility, deduplication, approval, queue-routing, and 48-hour controls.