RedLine is a proud partner and administrator of the Arts in Society grant. Funded through a cohort of Colorado foundations and government agencies, this collaborative program provides grants to both individuals and organizations that use art as a vehicle to promote social justice and community welfare.
We love highlighting our Arts in Society (AiS) grant recipients and all the unique and impactful projects made possible by their grant.
We’re excited continue this series by highlighting 2026 Arts in Society project: When Fear and Bravery Collide by The Brave Women's Community Center
Tell us about your organization
The mission of The Brave Women's Community Center is a Colorado-based nonprofit dedicated to helping women rebuild connection with themselves and one another through creativity, storytelling, and community. Our work was born from a simple but powerful belief: women heal differently when they are not competing, performing, or shrinking to belong. We create spaces where women can experiment, play, speak honestly, and be witnessed without needing to be perfect first.
Through therapeutic improv, storytelling workshops, creative arts experiences, survivor-centered gatherings, and our podcast Brave Hearts Speak, we help women reconnect with voice, courage, and authentic self-expression. Many of the women who come to us are navigating the aftermath of psychological abuse, trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, or years of social conditioning that taught them to stay quiet, overly accommodating, or disconnected from themselves. Our programs are designed to help women gently step back into creativity, embodiment, confidence, and community.
What makes our organization unique is that we are intentionally building a culture rooted in collaboration over competition. We want women to discover the power of collaboration and the magic they can create together when they are no longer trying to outperform, compare, or prove themselves worthy.
We believe witnessing another woman’s story is a sacred act. Whether women are laughing together in improv, sharing stories in a circle, experimenting with movement and voice, or creating original performances together, the deeper goal is the same: helping women feel less alone, more connected, and more fully alive.
This year, with support from RedLine Contemporary Art Center, we are launching a year-long survivor-created theatre project that will guide women through therapeutic theatre, creative writing, movement, voice, and performance development, culminating in a public performance and documentary film.
Our hope is not only to support healing, but to help women reclaim authorship over their stories, discover their creative power, and experience what becomes possible when women bravely create beside one another instead of in isolation.
Tell us about your first project that will utilize your Arts in Society Colorado Arts Grant
With support from the RedLine Contemporary Art Center Arts in Society grant, The Brave Women’s Community Center will launch a year-long survivor-created theatre project centered on women who have experienced interpersonal abuse, psychological abuse, and relational trauma. This project will bring women together through therapeutic theatre, movement, voice, storytelling, and collaborative performance creation.
Over the course of the year, participants will move from building safety and connection with one another into devising original scenes and performances rooted in their lived experiences.
The project was created from a deep belief that survivors deserve spaces where they are not only supported, but where their voices, creativity, and leadership are valued. Many survivors spend years silencing themselves, disconnecting from their bodies, or feeling isolated in their experiences.
This program is designed to gently help participants reconnect with play, imagination, self-expression, and community through the creative process. We are especially interested in what happens when women create beside one another rather than in isolation — and how collaboration itself can become part of healing.
Participants will engage in therapeutic improv, movement exploration, creative writing, vocal expression, and autobiographical theatre-making practices. As trust develops within the group, participants will collaboratively create an original performance piece that reflects themes of survival, identity, courage, grief, humor, resilience, and reclamation.
A documentary film will also capture portions of the creative process, highlighting not only the final performance, but the relationships, bravery, and transformation that emerge throughout the year.
A long-term goal of the project is sustainability and leadership development. In the final phase, participants will have opportunities to learn how to facilitate therapeutic improv and creative arts experiences within survivor communities themselves.
Our hope is that this project becomes more than a single performance — that it becomes the beginning of a growing network of survivor-led creative community spaces rooted in collaboration, authenticity, and collective healing.
The Brave Women’s Community Center is in a season of building. While this survivor-created theatre project is a major step for us, it is also laying the foundation for a much larger vision centered on creative healing, survivor leadership, and community collaboration among women. One of our biggest goals moving forward is to continue
What's next in the pipeline for your organization? What other projects are you dreaming up for next year, and how will your AiS grant help to support these efforts?
Over the next year, we hope to expand our therapeutic improv programming, launch additional storytelling and expressive arts workshops, and continue growing Brave Hearts Speak, our survivor-centered podcast and audio storytelling platform.
We are especially interested in creating more opportunities for women to safely share their stories through audio, theatre, writing, and public conversation.
We also hope to develop leadership pathways where women who move through our programs can eventually help facilitate groups, mentor others, or collaborate creatively on future projects.
Long term, we are dreaming about creating a larger creative healing center for women, a space where survivors can access community arts programming, workshops, performances, storytelling opportunities, and collaborative projects under one roof.
We want to help create a different culture among women: one that values authenticity, collaboration, creativity, and mutual encouragement over perfectionism and competition.
We believe the arts have the power to reconnect women not only with themselves, but with each other.
The Arts in Society grant from RedLine Contemporary Art Center is helping us move from vision into action. It is giving us the opportunity to pilot a large-scale collaborative arts project, deepen our community partnerships, build organizational credibility, and learn what is possible when women are given time, space, and support to create together.
The grant is not only funding a single project it is helping us build the infrastructure, relationships, and momentum needed for future survivor-centered creative work to continue growing in Colorado.
What was your experience like when applying for an Arts in Society grant? What tips would you share with artists looking to apply?
Applying for the Arts in Society grant through RedLine Contemporary Art Center was both exciting and emotionally challenging for me. I came to the application process with a lot of hesitation and a deep sense of imposter syndrome, something I still actively work through as both an artist and community leader.
I cared deeply about the project we wanted to create, but there was a part of me that questioned whether I belonged in spaces like this or whether the vision was “big enough” or “good enough.” What I have learned is that bravery is often not the absence of self-doubt, but the willingness to move forward while it is still present.
What made this application experience especially meaningful was that I did not create it alone. I collaborated closely with a colleague throughout the process, and in many ways, the way we approached the application mirrored the very heart of the project we were proposing.
We met once a week for nearly two months to dream, brainstorm, shape ideas, and envision what this program could become for survivors and for our community.
That collaborative process became incredibly grounding and inspiring for me. It reminded me that meaningful creative work often grows through relationships, shared imagination, and allowing ideas to evolve over time rather than trying to perfect them immediately.
One thing that really stands out to me about the application process was how welcoming it felt. The live informational meeting about the grant and who should apply genuinely gave me courage.
Hearing RedLine talk about the values behind Arts in Society helped me realize that the project I most deeply wanted to create — one rooted in storytelling, healing, collaboration, and community impact — was actually aligned with their mission.
That experience helped quiet some of the internal pressure to make the project fit into what I thought arts funding “should” look like.
For artists considering applying, my biggest advice would be this: apply for the project that feels meaningful to you, not the one you think people want to hear about. Let yourself imagine the joy you might experience working directly with the population you most want to help, and let that be a driving force in your process.
We are powerful when we are joyful in our work.
Also, do not underestimate the value of collaboration and conversation during the development process. Some of the strongest parts of our proposal emerged simply from giving ourselves time to meet consistently, reflect together, and allow the vision to deepen organically.
Most importantly, don’t wait to feel fully confident before applying. Sometimes opportunities like this help grow your confidence precisely because you chose to step forward before you felt fully ready.
Administered by RedLine and funded through a cohort of Colorado foundations and government agencies, Arts in Society is a grant program supporting cross-sector work through the arts across Colorado.
