Learnings – And How We’re Responding
The Advisory Committee members synthesized data from 2022 and 2023 grant years and drew heavily on their own experiences working in grassroots arts nonprofits organizations and as reviewers for grant processes beyond the Community Foundation. The Committee also considered learnings from 70 grant feedback calls in response to the 2023 application process, conducted by the Director of Arts and Culture. Finally, the Committee thought carefully about the similar and distinct needs across the nine WNY counties which include urban and rural communities. The results of this work are detailed below.
Learning: Organizations dedicate time and emotional energy to complete grant applications. We received 191 General Operating applications in 2023 and awarded 39 grants. In other words, 80 percent of submitted applications were not funded.
- Our Response: In order to demonstrate respect for the many resources that organizations dedicate towards grant applications, it became immediately clear that we need to refocus the Arts & Culture Initiative grant opportunity. Examples of this refocusing include: adjusting the eligibility guidelines to serve organizations with budgets of $500,000 or less, taking organizational staff infrastructure into account, and crafting more specific grant opportunities. While we still do not anticipate funding all proposals, we continue to commit to being available to discuss declination reasons with all applicants.
Learning: For some organizations, a grant of $2,500 is impactful and can ensure the organization can continue to deliver crucial programming to the community. At times, a larger grant can demand administration that is beyond the organization’s capacity.
- Our Response: We are offering a Micro Grant opportunity where organizations with less than one full-time staff member (or FTE) can apply for up to $2,500. We plan to shorten the decision time frame so that organizations can make plans sooner.
Learning: 62 percent of the organizations who were denied last year had budgets of less than $500,000. This data showed that smaller organizations were less likely to be awarded a grant, therefore, the Arts & Culture Initiative was unintentionally contributing to a widening gap between small and midsize organizations.
- Our Response: We amended the eligibility requirements to lower the budget maximum to $500,000 to provide a more equitable, yet still competitive, grant opportunity. The grant processes also consider the capacity of an organization to access diverse revenue streams by including staffing requirements
Learning: Unrestricted, general operating dollars are less common in in our region. These dollars afford an organization needed flexibility to “keep the lights on.”
- Our Response: To continue recognizing the importance of general operating dollars the Micro Grant opportunity is 100 percent general operating funding and the Capacity Building + General Operating opportunity preserves unrestricted funds as part of the award.
Learning: The arts funding landscape in Western New York is changing. There are fewer capacity-building grant opportunities available to arts orgs which means that orgs have less opportunity to truly develop sustainability.
- Our Response: We have created a dedicated Capacity Building + General Operating grant opportunity to address this gap in Western New York’s funding landscape. We also hope that this opportunity may provide an opportunity to identify consultants who are committed to strengthening grassroots, arts organizations.
Learning: The arts community is weathering significant changes including changes in arts funding and changes in the way audiences consume the arts. We are also faced with a consistent under-prioritization of the arts. These factors combined require arts organizations to re-articulate what they do, who they serve, and, most importantly, why are they so needed in the community.
- Our Response: The Capacity Building + General Operating opportunity provides a dedicated fund for organizations to engage in this internal reflection and to re-develop their messaging, if needed.
Learning: Equitable collaboration takes tremendous energy, vision, and organizational capacity. For the collaborative grant opportunity offered by the Arts and Culture Initiative in 2022 and 2023, we received seven applications in 2022 and six applications in 2023. From this data, we inferred that collaboration is currently more of a wish list item for most organizations and there are more pressing priorities that need to be addressed.
- Our Response: We will pause the dedicated Collaborative grant opportunity and instead, encourage collaboration through cohort-based learning opportunities for grant recipients.