If you’re keen to impact more people through your music, and perhaps increase your earnings, then grant funding and partnerships with non-profit organizations can make both possible.
First, though, it’s wise to understand the complete grant cycle.
For professionals who already have ample experience winning grants, my articles, Resources for Grantseekers and How to Write a Grant Proposal can immediately help them discover funders and write effective proposals.
But if the grants ecosystem is new to you – for instance if you’re an emerging professional musician or a startup arts organization – many websites describe the grant cycle in a manner that could hamper your potential to generate grant-worthy projects.
Below, I explain the problematic feature of the conventional grant cycle model and offer an alternative that I conceived through my work as a music entrepreneurship educator and consultant.
After absorbing the information here, even if you’re a novice, you’ll be better prepared to devise and fund arts projects.
“Many websites describe the grant cycle in a manner that could hamper your potential to generate grant-worthy projects.”
The Standard Grant Cycle Model
Conventional representations of the grant cycle advise grantseekers to, in the initial stage, develop project ideas. The next stage involves seeking funders.
For emerging artists and organizations, that’s largely backward.
Young professionals first need to understand funder missions, guidelines, and priorities. Lacking that information, they’re far less likely to come up with fundable project ideas.
So, to help grantseekers succeed, I coined The “Funding-First” Grant Cycle.
The Funding-First Grant Cycle
My Funding-First Grant Cycle asks grantseekers to first identify and study funders suited to their disciplines and locations. That is, grantseekers begin by discovering potential funding sources before they hammer out project ideas and plans.
It’s a rigorous process, requiring many hours, oftentimes days, of intensive research. And it normally turns up plenty of dead ends before it results in discoveries of funders who consistently support specific types of artists and arts organizations.
AI tools can help uncover funders, but musicians and arts administrators should still painstakingly review funder guidelines and recent funded projects to screen out unsuitable funders.
In time, after grantseekers uncover potential funders and fully grasp the guidelines and grantmaking priorities of those funders, grantseekers can then use the constraints of funding programs to inform the second stage in the funding-first grant cycle: developing project ideas.
“Grantseekers begin by discovering potential funding sources before they hammer out project ideas and plans.”
The project-development process is typically even more demanding than the funder-identification stage. But, by assimilating funder priorities, grantseekers become empowered to hatch projects that harmonize their own missions with those of their chosen funders, as shown in the following example.
The “Funding-First” Model in Action
Let’s say that a budding classical music organization – a non-profit that supports a string quartet – aspires to launch string quartet concert series in different towns within a single U.S. state. Their aim is to feature their quartet in every concert.
Using the “funding-first” model, they discover potential statewide and local funders, and their research reveals that the funders prioritize proposals that feature both diverse performers and inclusive repertoire.
That information would then equip the musicians and their non-profit organization to come up with proposed concert programs that could involve partnerships with diverse composers and guest performers, incorporate world music, be built around social justice themes, and so forth. By applying the funder priorities, the musicians formulate programs that are more creative, exciting to play, and attractive to audiences and funders.
In contrast, if they didn’t study grantmaker priorities first, they might have naively coined programs consisting of music by the standard European composers that the quartet members studied in school. Then, after examining grantmaker guidelines (the second stage of the conventional grant cycle), they’d either submit grant proposals with little chance of funding or they’d have to start over to come up with new project ideas.
“By assimilating funder priorities, grantseekers become empowered to hatch projects that harmonize their own missions with those of their chosen funders.”
The Complete “Funding-First” Grant Cycle
Here’s how I depict the complete Funding-First Grant Cycle (click the image to view it larger in a new tab).
Note that, in this article, I only discuss stages one and two of the cycle. See my article How to Write a Grant Proposal for guidelines to complete stage three.
“Funding-First” Grant Cycle, by Gerald Klickstein
The Constraints of Funder Guidelines Fuel Creativity
Needless to say, formulating projects within the bounds of funder constraints increases our ability to win grants. More remarkably, it also heightens our creativity.
Constraints accelerate creativity because they function like containers and soil in which our creativity can grow.
It’s akin to the ways in which composers are commissioned to write for particular ensembles, and the limits of instrumentation and duration constrain their compositional possibilities yet also propel their music into being.
Likewise, poets may write in restrictive forms and visual artists paint within canvas dimensions, and those boundaries ignite their creative output.
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- For more about the creativity-boosting effect of constraints, see the article, “Need to Create? Get a Constraint“, by Jonah Lehrer (Wired, 13 Nov. 2011).
Next Steps for Grant Seekers & Explorers
With the “Funding-First” model in mind, if you’d like to learn more about grants, whether you’re ready to pursue funding or you’re just exploring the grants ecosystem, my article, Partnering with Non-Profits, provides two case examples of ways in which grants can support music performance and education projects.
After absorbing that information, you’ll be armed to dive into the grant education and discovery tools compiled in my posts, Resources for Grantseekers. and How to Write a Grant Proposal.
By studying those articles, you can learn grant-writing techniques and more; you might also zero in on some funders in your region.
If you come up with an idea that excites you and aligns with a grantmaker’s guidelines, before applying for any grant, consult a mentor and then a funder representative to refine your project ideas, your budget, and go over your plans for the entire grant cycle.
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- Tip for students: Students are seldom eligible to receive professional grants, but universities and conservatories commonly offer grant programs for students. Such grants may fund student professional development, campus performances, community engagement events, and so forth. If you’re a student, research the grant resources available at your school, and then seek out one or more mentors for help with the inclusive grant cycle.
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Successfully executing the complete grant cycle entails hard work. But the steps you take realizing grant-worthy projects could make lasting impacts on you and your communities.
And because funders have ample resources and are eager to partner with innovative artists and arts organizations, there has never been a more opportune time to generate, fund, and carry out meaningful arts projects.
“There has never been a more opportune time to generate, fund, and carry out meaningful arts projects.”
Related posts
3 Traits of Successful Concert Programs
Partnering with Non-Profits
Resources for Grantseekers
The Secret to Sustainable Music Careers
Supply and Demand for Classical Musicians
© 2021 Gerald Klickstein
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