To be eligible for consideration, applicants must:
- Be an individual living with spinal cord injury. CCI uses the definition used by the program’s funder, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation: We consider those with SCI to be individuals with neurological and functional impairment due to traumatic SCI, degenerative disease primary to the spinal cord (transverse myelitis), or damage to the spinal cord due to tumors and surgery. Individuals with spinal dysfunction, paralysis, or pain syndromes caused by other disorders are not eligible (e.g., multiple sclerosis, ALS, Chiari malformation and other developmental disorders, primary orthopedic disorders, and peripheral nerve injury). (SCI applicants may be part of a team, but only if the applicant is the primary owner or lead);
- Live and work in the USA or its territories; and
- Self-define as an artist, maker, creative, or culture bearer, or whose project reflects deep and sustained refining that reflects a craft, cultural, or artistic practice.
Who can apply:
- Artists (a person who practices any of the various creative arts such as visual artists, musicians, dancers, media artists, sculptors, filmmakers, etc.);
- Cultural practitioners (one who is continuing to keep a cultural identity and/or tradition alive);
- Makers (creators of new devices or reimagining existing ones, DIYers, self-made life hackers in fields ranging from food to crafts to technology); or
- Someone who does not self-define as an artist but whose innovation reflects sustained refining much like a craft or artistic practice would and whose practices are a form of creative self-expression.
