Friday, April 26, 2019
So I Got a Grant! (Or Three.) Here's How, and Why It Means Everything and Nothing
Dance Magazine: A little over a year ago, I wrote an op-ed for Dance Magazine about the grueling, oppressive grant cycle. It was crying into my pillow, really. I was complaining and desperate to share my story. I was fed up with 10 years of applying for grants and having never received one for the research or development of my work. I was tired of the copy-and-paste rejection letters, the lack of feedback, and what seems to be a biased, inconsistent system.
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When coming to college, the talk about grants is something I have heard many people discuss. In the beginning of the year, our design teacher proposed a trip to prague over the summer which was open to anyone is our class, along with the only requirement which was to get the school to give you a grant in order to go on this trip. Being that grants are something fairly new to me, I didn’t know exactly where to start which was my initial reason for clicking on this article. This article talked about the journey of getting a grant and it opened up my eyes to the amount of work that goes into getting one. It’s almost like a proposal for yourself and in a way promoting and explained why you are deserving. Initially that sounds like a strange concept but it’s something that eventually you will have to do for yourself. There are times where you will have to sell yourself or advocate for yourself in order to get things you want like jobs, internships, and even grants,
I think the arts industry’s reliance on the grant process creates a really interesting phenomenon in the way we view our work and also how the world sees our work. Arts, much like independent public research, rely heavily on grants (in addition to private donations) to sustain our work. The overall idea being that funding these projects is important, but it’s immoral to have the whole burden of the cost be on the consumer. However, because of the competitive nature of the grant process and the limited funding available, it also creates a highly unstable market. Much like the article points out, it can make artists despise the process that provides most of the funding for the arts. It creates a lot of dis-harmony within the arts eco-system. I think it’s important for both artists and grant-providing organizations to keep this in mind during the process. Having sympathy and understanding is key to keeping the delicate balance the maintains our industry.
I thought that this article offered a excellent first hand perspective of the grant writing process and some good tips to keep in mind moving forward. Grants and Grant writing has always been something that I though was very interesting and have wanted to learn more about and I think this article was a good sneak peak into the world. I thought her friends tip of writing the proposal with expletives was a really good one. She kept referring to a suggestion for grant writing as staying angry my interpretation of this is to stay passionate about your projects and let that fuel the work you’re doing and how to promote it. It appears that the author of this article had to deal with some serious shifting of priorities in order to receive funding for her vision and I think that is also a useful strategy to try. Continuing to hit your head against the wall in the same way which has already proved ineffective likely call for a need to change,.
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