NEA awards grants to Games for Change and other game-related nonprofits

A number of game industry organizations will be receiving financial grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the latter half of 2014, according to the organization's recently-released 2014 Spring grant announcement. The NEA awards grants across a number of categories, including arts education, museums, and musical theater. This spring, multiple game industry organizations are honored across multiple categories -- the Games for Change organization will receive a $55,000 Media Arts grant to support distribution and marketing of Half the Sky, a game designed to address the state of women's rights worldwide, for example. Other notable awards include a $47,000 grant to Minnesota Public Radio, Inc. to help support the production of "Top Score," a national radio show that aims to elucidate the trials and triumphs of composing video game soundtracks. A little farther afield, the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA will receive a $10,000 Theater & Musical Theater grant to fund development of an "interactive social media game that promotes theater" in conjunction with students from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. The NEA estimates it will award over $74 million to nonprofit organizations across the country in the second half of 2014.