Change Labs to Receive $125,000 Our Town Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

TUBA CITY, AZ—Change Labs has been approved for a $125,000 Our Town award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the architectural design of expansion of its entrepreneurship hub in Tuba City as well as architectural design for a Change Labs entrepreneurship hub in Shiprock. This is one of 57 grants nationwide, totaling $4,175,000, that the NEA has approved in the Our Town category. These creative placemaking grants support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into local efforts to strengthen and authentically engage communities, center equity, advance artful lives, and lay the groundwork for long-term systems change.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects, including Change Labs expansion of modern workspace for Navajo entrepreneurs, demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”

“Not many people know this but Change Labs came into existence back in 2014 when the co-founders were awarded a small grant from NEA to put on an ‘entrepreneurship & innovation event’ in Shiprock,” says Change Labs executive director and co-founder, Heather Fleming. “That’s how all this work started. A small NEA grant. And now, nearly 10 years later, we’re collaborating again with NEA to significantly expand an idea they helped us seed all those years ago. It’s come full circle.”

Change Labs will use the grant funding to build architectural plans to expand their existing entrepreneurship hub in Tuba City from 1,400 sqft to approximately 3,000 square feet. The hub serves as community space for entrepreneurship workshops, trainings, one-on-one coaching, and also workspace for local business owners. The NEA grant also will fund architectural plans for launching a Change Labs E-ship Hub in Shiprock, NM, the community that hosted the very first Change Labs event in 2014. The design work is scheduled to kickoff in Fall 2023 with community design sessions and conclude in Summer 2024.

For more information on the projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.