The Chapman Prize

The Chapman Prize is an annual private charitable award established through the Daniel and Barbara Chapman Trust. Burke and Herbert Bank and Trust Company serves as trustee of the Trust. The Prize recognizes and honors charitable individuals and organizations whose efforts and achievements contributed significantly to improving quality of life in the United States during the previous year. For the current cycle, the Chapman Prize focuses specifically on Arts and Culture and will select one charitable individual or organization for the annual award. The Arts and Culture focus recognizes an applicant who has contributed most significantly to improving cultural life and or significantly aided the growth and availability of the arts in the United States during the previous year. Examples provided by the funder include programs that bring the arts to underserved communities and populations, programs that create opportunities for the arts and artists to thrive, and programs that use the arts to build bridges and partnerships. Applicants must demonstrate the relevance of their work to this Arts and Culture focus and show demonstrated impact during the previous year. The Chapman Prize normally provides an award between $80,000 and $100,000, and one charitable individual or organization is selected annually. The provided source does not identify a required cost share or matching contribution, so no matching requirement is indicated. It also does not specify detailed allowable or prohibited expenditures, an award performance period, indirect cost limitations, or other restrictions governing how the recipient may spend the prize funds. The stated purpose is to recognize significant charitable contributions to society, and information about previous winners is available separately through the Prize website. Eligible applicants are either charitable individuals who are U.S. citizens or U.S.-based charitable nonprofit organizations recognized under section 501(c)(3). Applicants must operate exclusively in the United States and must have been conducting charitable work in the United States for at least the last three years. They must also demonstrate impact during the previous year in Arts and Culture. Organizations engaged in political campaigns or lobbying activities are expressly ineligible. No state-specific restriction is stated, so the opportunity applies across the United States to applicants otherwise meeting these requirements. Applications are submitted using the Chapman Prize online application form. The funder specifically states that the online form has no save function and directs applicants to review the Application Guide before applying. Applications are screened initially for satisfaction of all eligibility requirements and completeness, including all required attachments. An application that does not qualify or is incomplete will not advance. The provided webpage text does not enumerate the individual application questions or identify each required attachment, so those details cannot be reliably reproduced from the supplied source alone. Applications that pass initial screening proceed to merit review by the selection committee. Merit review is weighted 50 percent for Breadth of Impact, 20 percent for Quality of Project Concept, 15 percent for Collaboration Among Partners, and 15 percent for Organizational Sustainability. These criteria indicate that applicants should clearly substantiate the scale of their impact while also explaining the quality of their work, relevant partnerships, and organizational sustainability. Breadth of Impact carries half of the total evaluation weight and is therefore the most heavily weighted stated selection consideration. The current Chapman Prize cycle opens September 1, 2026 and closes September 30, 2026. Applications will not be accepted after midnight EST on the closing date. Committee evaluation and review begins October 1, 2026, and the award winner will be notified and receive funds by December 31, 2026. The Prize is expressly described as annual, so recurrence is established. Based on the annual schedule and the September opening of the current cycle, the next cycle is expected in September 2027 unless the funder announces a different schedule. The official contact supplied is Contact@ChapmanPrize.org, and no individual contact person or telephone number is identified in the provided source.

Verify every eligibility requirement and required attachment before submitting because incomplete or ineligible applications do not advance. Emphasize Breadth of Impact because it accounts for 50 percent of merit review, followed by Quality of Project Concept at 20 percent, Collaboration Among Partners at 15 percent, and Organizational Sustainability at 15 percent.