How to write a grant proposal for dance
Writing a Winning Grant - Dance Informa Magazine
By Rain Francis of Dance Informa.
We all agree there’s not enough money in the dance industry, but are we making the most of the opportunities that are available? The very thought of writing a grant application is enough to scare many choreographers off – which is good news for the ones that do give it a crack. Is grant application really that daunting?
“The first grant is always the hardest to write. Always,” says Adam Wheeler. He should know – he’s been writing them for years, for his various companies, including Yellow Wheel and 2nd Toe Dance Collective.
It’s been a great year for Wheeler, with a “100 per cent strike rate” on grants he’s applied for. The 24 months prior to this though, he says, have been much less successful. “It’s really up and down. It doesn’t mean I’m going to get any more next year either; there’s no such thing as ‘once you’re in, you’re in’.”
Adam Wheeler’s Yellow Wheel youth dance company presents ‘FX. ’ Photo by Byron Perry.
So what is the secret to Wheeler’s success? I picked his brain to bring you these ten top tips for writing grant applications.
1. Choose the right funding body.
Become a member of Ausdance so you can receive the Ausdance bulletins, as they will usually list the relevant grants that are available at any given time. Do a Google search for local, state and federal grants, as well as philanthropists with an interest in dance, such as the Besen Family Foundation and Elisabeth Murdoch.
2. Be really clear on your idea.
Have a strong vision even, if you’re just going into the development phase of your work. Expect that the people reading it have no idea who you are or what your work is: You need to sell it. Once the panel have read your application, they need to have a very clear idea of what the project will be. “Don’t get too wordy or poetic,” says Wheeler. “It needs to have a flavour of passion in it, but as the reader, I need to have a really clear understanding of how this project will come together.
”
3. Be ready to sell the relevance of the work.
Ask yourself: Why does this project have to happen now? Why do YOU have to do it? How will it benefit you, the audience, the dance industry and the wider community? These are all things which you need to be able to articulate to convince a panel to give you money to create the work.
4. Give yourself plenty of time.
Grant writing takes time; a rushed application is going to come across as unclear and unprofessional. Give yourself a month to six weeks before the application is due, especially if you are not starting out without a crystal clear idea in mind.
5. Just start writing.
“Vomit ideas,” says Wheeler. “Get it all out onto paper, don’t try and write a final edit. For anything I write, I’ll put all the criteria and questions into a Word document and then I’ll just start dumping my thoughts, seeing where they slot into the questions and start writing from there.”
6. Enlist others to read your application.
“Becky Hilton reads a lot of my grants,” says Wheeler. “She knows my work and where I’m coming from, so she can tell me if I’m being clear or not.” After the weeks you’ll spend writing and re-writing, you’ll need to be able to take a step back and get someone to read over your application with fresh eyes. Having an outside perspective is imperative.
7. Make every application original.
So you’ve tackled your first grant and you’re applying for another one for the same project. Be careful not to fall into a trap of just cutting and pasting. “Every funding body has particular criteria and it’s very easy to think that once you’ve written that first one, you can just copy and paste,” says Wheeler. Look at each application as a separate entity and make sure you’ve read and understood all the requirements of that particular funding body.
8. Fantastic support material is crucial.
In this day and age, with the technology we have available to us, there’s no excuse for not having links to high quality footage and photos.
This kind of support material is going to give your audience a much clearer idea of what you are writing about, so collect as much relevant, good quality material as you can. “Remember, with project funding, panels can read up to 50 applications in one hit, so the clearer the vision can be with really great support material, the better.”
9. Write somewhere nice.
If you’re in a happy place, you’re going to be more productive. Do whatever works for you, whether that means writing from your favourite cafe, the library, or your bed. “I always listen to Sigur Ros when I’m writing grants,” says Wheeler. “It puts me in a zone where I can really get my words out, and then I’m away.” Share the task of writing with someone else if you can – two heads are better than one!
10. Allow time for your application to develop.
“When we make a dance work, we play with ideas before eventually knuckling it down to whatever it needs to be for the performance,” says Wheeler.
“It’s the same for writing grants.”
Photo (top): © Ammentorp | Dreamstime.com
Related Items:2nd Toe Dance Collective, Adam Wheeler, arts funding, arts grants, dance grant, funding body, government funding, government grant, grant writing, Yellow Wheel
Grant Writing for Individual Artists: Creating your Grant Proposal Toolkit
Creating your Grant Proposal ToolkitGrant writing for individual artists has changed in the last twenty years. Most funders no longer want a traditional narrative grant proposal. Instead, they ask that artists respond to a series of questions through an online application portal, with strict character and word limits. Every funder has different requirements for their grant submissions, but there are many commonly requested components that can be written in advance – think of it as your grant proposal toolkit, which consists of a series of written components can be used for multiple grants and multiple purposes.
Grant Writing Components for your Toolkit
There are several key grant writing items that you will find in almost every grant application – in fact, you may already have some of these written.
If you do, take some time to review and update them. If you don’t, use some of the writing prompts below to get your creative juices flowing! Because every proposal has different character or word limitations, consider writing multiple versions of different lengths that can then be edited down – start with a 5,000-character version, and then edit it down to 2,500 characters.
Artist biography – This is a detailed description of your professional career.
- Describe yourself as an artist. What is your artistic medium or discipline? What/who are your major influences? What motivates you to create? What is your process? What professional experience do you have? Has any of your work been produced and if so, where and when? Where did you go to school and who have you studied with? Have you won any awards, been awarded grants or fellowships? What makes you and your work unique?
Artistic statement – Describe your art
Project description – Describe the project
Timeline – Describe the timing for the creation, rehearsal and production of your project.
Is any portion of it complete or is it entirely new work? When will it be shown/performed? Include dates.
Community or audience engagement and impact – Describe how your project will relate to or engage your community.
- Identify your community (geographic or cultural). How and why will this project benefit your community? Are there community benefits or impacts of the project? Are there educational or social components to the project and why are they relevant now? How will you engage community members in your project?
Marketing – List the ways that you will market your project to your community and to the general public.
- Include social media, emails, flyers, listings, postcards, media releases, advertisements.
Project budget – Outline your budget. This is a realistic, detailed, line-item list of expenses, earned and contributed income, and in-kind support for your project.
Evaluation – Describe how you will evaluate the success of your project and what outcomes you are hoping to achieve.
- How will you measure success? How will you evaluate whether or not you have achieved your stated goals? What data will you collect to measure your impact? How will you use that data to make any mid-course corrections?
References/Letters of support –While you can’t necessarily put these together in advance, you should identify some professional references (venues? presenters?) who have agreed to discuss your work with a funder or write a letter of support.
Work samples and description – Your work sample should include up to 10 minutes of good quality video or audio, and you should be able to identify specific segments of 3, 4 or 5 minutes to accommodate requests for shorter work samples.
- As noted by the MAP Fund, the most helpful work samples capture an artists’ unique sensibility and area of investigation, especially as it relates to the proposed work. Take some time in your work sample description to point out the ways in which the work sample is specifically related to the work you are proposing.
Don’t assume evaluators and panelists will see the connection. The aim is to bring the panel as close as possible to the actual experience of being in your audience as possible.
Describing your work and verbalizing what may be very conceptual artistic ideas is not easy, so you should give yourself plenty of time to write, edit and rewrite drafts of each component in your grant proposal toolkit. Once you’ve developed language that you feel comfortable with and that clearly conveys your artistic ideas, share it with some close friends or artistic associates whose opinions you trust. Listen to their feedback and remember that your goal is to draft language that others can easily understand.
Tips for successful grant writing
- Update your toolkit regularly.
- If there are grants you know you will want to apply for, including any annual community/city/state funding opportunities, go to the funder’s website and download their old applications to understand what they want and what their word or character limitations are.
For example, The MAP Fund has an excellent guide that walks you through every step of their application. - Proofread your drafts, put them down for a day or a week – and then proofread again. Repeat.
- Download online applications and respond to all questions offline, using the Word Count feature of your word processing program to make sure your response is within word or character limitations. Then cut and paste your responses into the online application. This way, you won’t lose your work if the system crashes midway through your proposal.
- Submit your online applications at least a day in advance of the deadline in case of technical problems.
- Save or print out a copy of your proposal before you submit.
- Remember, word or character limitations – and deadlines – are firm.
If you need to submit a traditional, narrative proposal, Candid Learning has excellent resources on how to structure your proposal, along with examples.
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How to apply for a grant to get it exactly
1. Study the formal side of the competition
In any competition, there are restrictions on who can take part in it (specialty or form of study, direction of research or country of study). For example, the Potanin Foundation Scholarship Program is open to students and teachers who study and teach full-time master's programs at 75 universities participating in the program.
It makes no sense to write to the organizers of the contest and ask them to consider your "special" case.
It is better to spend this time looking for other grant competitions whose formal criteria you meet. Check what documents are required to pass the competition (documents on education, certificates of employment, letters of recommendation), and specify where you can get them.
2. Plan
Start preparing the necessary documents in advance - do not leave everything to the last moment. The secretary of the dean's office, issuing certificates, fell ill; your supervisor, from whom you wanted to get a recommendation, went on a business trip. As a result, you did not have time to apply. Very disappointing.
Study the application form - think about how long it will take you to complete it. To write a quality text, you need to concentrate and think, it takes time. In addition, the competition may put forward other requirements for participants. For example, the application involves co-financing or the implementation of a project with partners. It takes time to find partners, and if they exist, then coordinate work with them.
3. Put yourself in the place of the competition organizer
Study the website of the organization implementing the competition. What are its mission and values? Why does she support this direction? Consider whether your goals and beliefs align with the mission and values of the organization. If you were a grant giver, would you give yourself a grant? Which applicant would be convincing for you?
4. Practice written communication skills
Any grant application involves writing a text: for example, a description of the relevance and uniqueness of your scientific research or your volunteer work experience. Work on your language: make it bright and convincing. Demonstrate to the grantor that you are unique and worthy of a grant. But don't overdo it: exaggerating your accomplishments will not improve your application. Most likely, the expert will think that you are not a very serious applicant.
Structure your application well.
Use the generally accepted approach: one paragraph - one thesis (supported by facts and examples). An application with vivid theses and arguments of a winning application containing a "stream of consciousness". Your language should be clear, precise, specific.
When preparing your application, review the criteria that apply to the applicant. Check if these criteria are reflected in your text.
Attend academic writing courses to improve your written communication skills: many leading universities offer these courses, including online.
5. Check again
Read your application to a friend/neighbor/mother. Did they get the point? What questions did they have? Is it likely that an expert reading your application will have the same questions?
Re-read your application - check it for all sorts of errors and omissions. Ask a friend/neighbor/mother to re-read the application for typos.
Sloppy text with a lot of errors and typos does not add points to the applicant.
6. Be careful when sending an application
Submit your application before the closing date for applications. Remember formalities? The story that your computer burned out and you were unable to send an application on time is unlikely to convince the organizers of the competition. Check where and how the application is sent. For example, in the Vladimir Potanin Scholarship Program, the application is automatically saved on the portal in the "draft" status. The applicant completes the submission by clicking "finish editing and apply". In this case, the application is considered submitted. If you do not take the last step, then the application will remain in draft status and will not be considered.
Finding and participating in grant competitions takes effort, but the effort is rewarded if you use the right approach.
90,000 grant 2019
Grant for training
For dancers Jagger
Grant for training
We want to help the most hardworking and talented dancers to study for free
9000 .
We love to perform.
We love to share our thoughts and get driven.
The art of dancing opens up a wide range of possibilities.
That's why we want to give one dancer a chance to level up for a year for free.
Dancing is the education of character
To master the art of dancing, you need to master many related professions: to be an actor, to be an athlete, to be a real artist.
Dancing develops universal qualities that allow you to achieve results in any area.
But even at the top of your dancing skills, you must always keep yourself in good shape.
Dancing creates opportunities
Yes, we don't have many grant awards yet.
But we will try to expand them.
The art of dancing helps a lot of people all over the world. We know that classes at Jagger give our children the opportunity to realize themselves, overcome complexes, find friends, learn to talk about what is important, learn a profession and much more.
The language of dance is universal and understandable to everyone.
We love to dance and we want your favorite activity to give you as many opportunities as possible.
Who can apply for a grant?
You have a desire to dance and develop in Jagger
You are studying
in Jagger more than
4 years
You have passed the last exam in Jagger without triples
You have analytical skills
You must apply by September 30 9008 fill out the form below.
You represent the project from 15 to 29November
You start work after submitting an application. On the appointed day, you send the presentation and materials by mail and come to defend your work.
The Expert Committee selects
winners November 30, 2019
The Expert Committee selects one winner and awards it.
Jagger will reimburse tuition for the next calendar year.
Job
Main job.
Subject: "Festivals of the world of dance and theatrical-dance art".
Expand the topic in a policy brief and presentation to the committee.
The job consists of 5 blocks.
The volume of analytical work - from 10 pages to 20 pages.
Presentation up to 15 slides.
Evaluation criteria and detailed requirements for each block will be sent by reply letter to the application by September 30th.
Basic rules
for receiving a grant
The grant is valid only for tuition fees
The grant is valid only for compensation for the learning process (payment for 10 months of classes).
The grant cannot be compensated in monetary terms.
The transfer of the monetary equivalent of the grant is not provided.
The grant is not transferable to another person
The grant cannot be gifted or transferred to another person.
The grant is valid from January 2020 to December 2020
The grant is valid for 1 dance year (10 months).
