When I was promoting my brother's classical music in New England, I was able to raise about $6,000 from individual "patrons", who considered themselves as such, for a concert and tape production. Our slogan for one ad for that was "Composers don't have to be dead to be good"©.

When I worked for the dir. of development, of an arts center in Rhode Island, we routinely had "patrons" donate healthy sums to bring folk to the center & out to the schools.

My experience with the NEA is that it is very difficult for an individual to get any kind of grant from them. maybe it has changed.