Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#328: David Holmes, Diane Scott, and Drew Tucker (Grants Panel Discussion) (pt. 2 of 2)
Today we release part two of our first Arts Grant Panel interview. Since artists and arts organizations were left scrambling for support this spring due to the budget cuts at the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, we decided to launch our first panel discussion with experts who have experience as grant writers, grantors and grantees. Our goal is to shed light on grant funding and provide suggestions entities should consider when writing for grants.
Joining us are:
David Holmes, an Educational Programming Manager at Candid, where he helps nonprofits and individuals find funding. He also coordinates national trainings and educational programming for the Midwest region. https://candid.org/
Diane Scott, The Director of Artist Services at the Regional Arts Organization Mid-America Arts Alliance, She is the founding director and principal designer of the Artist INC professional development program. Now in its 16th year, Artist INC programs have been offered in eight states and completed by more than 2,500 artists. https://artistinc.art/about/artist-services-team/ and https://www.dianerscott.com/about
Drew Tucker is a vibraphonist, educator, and national arts leader redefining what it means to be an artist and advocate today. As Director of the Jazz Road program at South Arts, he oversees millions in national grant funding to support jazz artists across the country. https://www.southarts.org/about/staff-and-board-directors and https://www.itsnotaxylophone.com/
If you want to apply for an arts grant, make sure you listen to this interview!
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners.
Andy Heise:My name is Andy Heise
Nick Petrella:and I'm Nick Petrella At the time of this recording. There have been deep cuts to grants in both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Since artists and arts organizations are left scrambling for support, we decided to launch our first panel discussion with experts who have experience as grant writers, grantors and grantees. With experts who have experience as grant writers, grantors and grantees. The goal of this episode is to shed light on grant funding and provide suggestions entities should consider when writing for grants. With us today are David Holmes, diane Scott and Drew Tucker. To save time, I'll read their brief biographies, but you're encouraged to visit the links in the show notes to read more about them and their organizations. Dave Holmes is an educational programming manager at Candid, where he helps nonprofits and individuals find funding. He also coordinates national trainings and educational programming for the Midwest region. Dave, thanks for being here.
David Holmes:Welcome, so glad to be back.
Nick Petrella:Diane Scott is the Director of Artist Services at the regional arts organization Mid-America Arts Alliance. She is the Director of Artist Services at the regional arts organization Mid-America Arts Alliance. She is the founding director and principal designer of the Artist Inc Professional Development Program, now in its 16th year. Artist Inc programs have been offered in eight states and completed by more than 2,500 artists. Thanks for joining us, diane.
Diane Scott:Hi, thanks for having us joining us.
Nick Petrella:Diane Hi, thanks for having us. Drew Tucker is a vibraphonist, educator and national arts leader, redefining what it means to be an artist and advocate today, as director of the Jazz Road Program at South Arts, he oversees millions in national grant funding to support jazz artists across the country. A former cultural ambassador for the United States State Department, drew has built a global career balancing creativity with community impact, performing internationally, building arts organizations and mentoring the next generation of artists. Welcome back, drew.
Drew Tucker:Thanks, man, it's always great to be here.
Nick Petrella:Thank you all for coming on the podcast. So, drew, we had spoken about feedback earlier and I'm wondering in your work with grants and mentorship, do you see a common mindset among artists who thrive after receiving feedback?
Drew Tucker:Yeah, and it's interesting because the same artists who will receive post-process feedback well, and reapply again is the same artist who comes to the Q&As that we offer beforehand, who attends the webinars. So there's this, an attitude and a relationship with criticism that they've developed that allows them to do something that is so personal and go and listen to how, in advance, like, okay, I'm not doing this right, I'm not hearing this in a pre-process webinar. That's like, okay, here's where I was thinking, here's how I'm going to change that thinking to align with what I have to do here. Or here's what I was doing and I see how I can tweak this, because I went to these sort of offerings that were offered in the process. And those same artists who will, uh, afterward, when you say, hey, listen it me, apply again, and that those artists tend to be successful, if not the first time, maybe the second time they apply. They seem to get more successful as time goes on and not less. They start to learn, just like anything else.
Drew Tucker:But it's the artists who have a poor relationship with feedback that tend to struggle, because you know some of them will want feedback right away. They'll be the first people in office hours, but really, if it's that soon, they haven't quite mourned the loss yet. So a lot of times they're bargaining, you know. So if you're saying, oh well, we thought your budget was a little bit unclear, well, I can change it, I can change it, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, and it's like, but don't you understand that? I didn't realize this? Can I just submit it again? You know, and so they're not trying to hear you at that point. They're really just still mourning the loss and sometimes that mourning period doesn't stop and it turns to bitterness and they don't apply for any grants anymore, and that's unfortunate. But if—so, my big recommendation for any artist in general. It's such a personal thing that we do, but we have to really look hard at our relationship with criticism. Does it send us in a tissy, does it send us feeling very defensive, or does it do we?
Drew Tucker:I always say there's three ways that you can take criticism. You can attack the person who's criticizing you. I'm sorry. Four ways. There's three bad ways. You can attack the way it was said, you can attack how it was said, and all of those things won't get you anywhere.
Drew Tucker:But if you just eat up the meat and spit out the bones. You know, maybe they did say something that was completely inaccurate, but within the things, maybe they saw, maybe there was something in there that if you're honest about, you're honest with yourself, like okay. And one thing I found that helped me with that is, I think of the artist to me as a separate person and so when I'm hearing it, I'm just kind of like transmitting that information to him and he's like, oh, okay, and he can get ticked off, but then I can talk him down. So I kind of separated the artist to me from the person to me. But I think that that is such a key element of any growth to just help your relationship with criticism being one that proves to be fruitful, as the thing that I feel is the least successful for anybody that's getting into grants is to get bitter or to believe that this foundation hates me.
David Holmes:I've heard that a lot of times. Oh, that foundation, they hate me. I'm like all of them. I mean, is that really true? Is that, could that be true? Is it more that they you know, they said no to you and you weren't expecting that? Foundations say no a whole lot more than they say yes? I bet and it isn't personal, you know, it's not, it's we have to do these certain things and this time we just couldn't make it work for you. Any feedback they give you, take it to heart and think about it for next time. And also, oh, sorry.
Drew Tucker:David, go ahead, no go. But I'd also oh sorry, david, go ahead, no go. I'd also like to mention that the job I currently have as director of jazz at South Arts I got because I did not get selected for a Jazz Road grant. So I applied for the grant, did not get it, but joined the email list and stayed connected because I was still thinking about it, still wanted to do it, and the job offer came around and I was like, oh, that job offer sounds like it was written for my bio, and so, you know, I jumped in.
Drew Tucker:But that's an unintended consequence of not getting a grant and going through all that work and wanting to stay connected. And, you know, some people do think like, yeah, this organization doesn't like me. I will say, though, that it's really important to remember what Diane was saying earlier, and I said everyone is on your side, like everyone is rooting for you. I mean, I've had people who've applied three, four times, and every time I'm over, I'm hearing the panel and I'm seeing it so close and I'm like man, that's just, you know, just just so close, you know, um. But it's also important, though, to make sure that you realize that, should you ever get awarded in the future that you're essentially an ambassador for this organization.
Drew Tucker:Every person that gets awarded goes out and says I got this grant from South Arts, it's a Jazz Road grant and if you are a jerk out there and you're just, you have a bad relationship with your presenters and your person and you're always fighting like they're gonna be like dude.
Drew Tucker:I guess this South Arts just awards bad people. So it is a consideration if somebody is particularly upset and decides that they are going to take that frustration out on the grantees, on the grantors. However it works. There is a certain aspect that if you do that enough times, people look at that name, come across and they're like well, is this person going to become a good ambassador for the program? Is this person going to go out into the world and help other people want to apply for this? So you just have to be also just really just careful with that and just remember that everyone's really on your side and that's that's not to say that there's like there's no, there's no lists or anything like that. But you know, if you put negative stuff out and you keep on pushing it out there, everyone will start to know, the panel will start to know, and they'll wonder too, and it will just be it just goes downhill. So again, just helping that relationship with criticism.
David Holmes:Don't be a jerk, and don't be a jerk to other artists either. I mean it's you know you don't know who you're talking to when you're talking about they could. They could love that other artist. They could know more about the situation than you do. It's being a jerk is not a great way to continue to get funding.
Nick Petrella:Live by the golden rule in general seems to work.
Andy Heise:Diane any other commonalities among successful grant applications from your experience.
Diane Scott:Yeah, sure, just keep in mind that you're going to have panelists who are reading these things and they're comparing large groups of folks. We give our panelists quite a lot of training. We really encourage them to focus on the art, to not get picky about things, but the reality of it is is that it really needs to be pretty meticulous, right? If you have a ton of grammatical errors in what you've submitted or it doesn't really address what has been asked for, those things, they do end up mattering, right? Like we can't take those out of people's heads because I promise you they will see other applications that are meticulous. And you know, with all the tools and things that we have available to us today, I don't actually recommend people use AI to help them write grants, but I do recommend that they use AI to help them make sure that their work is meticulous, that there isn't any of those types of things going on, that it reads clearly those types of things. You know. Other commonalities is that people spend some time.
Diane Scott:The most recent round of grant applications and I'm sure this won't come as a surprise to anyone who has received grants or written grants but you know, we put it out there. The guidelines are out for like more than two months. We talk about it for a month before that. And when do you suppose most of those grants are submitted? They are submitted in the last 24 hours. Seventy five percent come in the last 24 hours. 75% come in the last 24 hours and of that 75%, an overwhelming majority of them happen in the last 60 minutes.
Diane Scott:It's ridiculous and I have to say, most people's systems, our systems, like we're just using regular computer systems here and things. You know that's a lot of pressure on them. They're not really designed to handle that kind of thing. So if there's going to be a problem, there's going to be a problem with your computer, there's going to be a problem with their computer. It's going to happen then.
Diane Scott:And while we are actually pretty generous about those things, right like we'll work with you if something like that comes on, that's not necessarily true, especially if you're applying for government grants. If you don't get it in, you don't get it in, you know. The other thing is is that you need to look at all the pieces as they go together. So do your answers, even three narrative questions and a budget or you know, all these different things in the documentation that you submitted do they tell much to Drew's point? A cohesive story altogether, and sometimes I think you should keep in mind that oftentimes your panelist isn't an exact expert in your particular discipline. So if you're a musician and you're applying for us, you're going to get a musician panel. However, you may be a jazz musician and the other people on that panel may be opera. They may be a whole huge variety of different things, and so you kind of have to assume that they don't have deep knowledge about what it is that you're doing.
Diane Scott:I super recommend that people you know hand this to your mom and have her ask questions about it, and, honestly, if mom has questions about it, probably somebody else does too, and so it needs to make really cohesive sense, all those pieces together.
Drew Tucker:I would just like to say, Diane, that I'm very glad that it's not just jazz musicians who wait to the last 24 hours.
Announcer:I was concerned that it was just something that was somewhat unique.
Nick Petrella:It may be disproportionately jazz musicians but not out in the woods yet.
Drew Tucker:But that was great advice. What you said is give it to somebody who has nothing to do, like your mom, your sub-friend, and let them read it down and ask the questions. And again, it's about knowing what questions to ask and to say, oh, I didn't so many things. We assume that we learned it so early and it's not easy to teach that which one didn't struggle to learn, so you didn't struggle to learn about. You know how to do certain things in your craft, so it's hard to communicate that to them no-transcript.
Nick Petrella:Who yeah?
David Holmes:Everybody from a particular family that's getting together. It is I talk to people and I say it could be like a family reunion. Think of your family reunion. Does everybody know what you do? Does everybody understand what you do? I mean, that might be the kind of thing. Some people have expertise, A lot of people don't.
Andy Heise:Can I add one to this conversation, and that is to follow the instructions and use the templates that are provided. They're often not suggestions. Their templates and instructions are there for a very particular reason.
Nick Petrella:Andy's the only person on the podcast who actually follows the IKEA instructions.
Drew Tucker:Oh no, I say I do, although I was cleaning out my toolbox the other day and realized I have so many extra pieces and little bags from things and I'm like, huh, that can't be good, that's probably fine.
Andy Heise:I did a whole kitchen so I've got a box full of that stuff. Yeah, I had a former student come to me. They applied for a grant and they didn't get the grant and they sent me their stuff so I could cause they wanted some feedback. So I reviewed it and I'm looking at the budget. I'm like this just doesn't make sense, like there's no way that I know that this organization, you know, did not ask for the budget in this way and and so I said, did they? Did they provide any templates or guides for how to put a budget together? Yeah, there was a spreadsheet, but I was like, no, you have to use that spread. If they're giving you a spreadsheet to create a budget, to submit, use that template, don't create your own.
Drew Tucker:Was this mine? Because this sounds like a very You've had a similar experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah well, we provide all the templates, and then you know.
Andy Heise:And then who knows what you get. Yeah, I mean, even from I've, I've reviewed, you know, grants before it's, and even if it's, even if the one that they submit is okay, like it's not the template but it's okay you still, like, that question goes through your head like well, why didn't they just use the template? I don't know, yeah, and maybe that, maybe that's a bias of mine with spreadsheets, but anyways. So, dave, big question on a lot of people's minds at the moment how do you think the current national arts funding changes might affect grant making in the US for artists?
David Holmes:Yeah, and it's something that changes every day. So you know the answer might be completely different. Yeah, so, but I would say that the national funding changes is has put everybody kind of on high alert because they don't know exactly what it means yet and it doesn't. They don't know exactly how it's going to shake down and how it's applied. Foundations are notoriously slow to move. They like to listen and make decisions based on that, and I've seen examples recently of foundations that have said we're going to change what we do because of the way the government is thinking about these things and we're, you know, maybe we're afraid of legal challenges. I've also seen foundations step up and say we are going to be giving more money, more unrestricted money, more multi-year kind of funds, because they want to continue something and maybe fill in where government funding might disappear.
David Holmes:What Canada has done is basically do a lot of research on this and we've been sharing on our blog some details about you know how much national funding comes and where does it go, and the thing is that there's no. You know, even if all the funders decided to increase their funding tremendously, there's no way it could make up for a lack of government funding. Government funding is so much larger and so much more present. But what is heartening to me is to see foundations say well, you know, if this begins to be cut, we're going to increase the amount of payout. You know the law says private foundations have to give out 5% of their assets per year. Some foundations have said we're going to increase payout.
David Holmes:Some foundations have signed on and said we are not backing down from our values and our mission. We are going to continue to do that and I think that it's going to be foundation by foundation, them deciding which direction do they go and how do they react to what's happening. So if you're not sure, if you are looking at a grant application and you think, well, I wonder if that's changed. I have last year's and I wonder if it's any different this year. Definitely check, definitely look to see on that organization's website. I would reach out and call them and say is this the same, this different? Is there anything? I need to know anything new? It never hurts to double check on anything because things are changing so fast yeah, diane grants are only one piece of potential funding for individual artists.
Nick Petrella:How do grants fit into the overall portfolio of artist revenues?
Diane Scott:So we always talk about this. A colleague of mine had a presentation saying grants are one piece of the pie, right, and it is just one piece of the pie, and it's pie, it's dessert, it's optional, you don't have to have grants. I know plenty of successful artists who have never had a grant and won't even try to get one. Right, like, it is not a necessary component. Um, it's a yummy component. I like pie and it's super awesome, right? Yeah, I'm just was reading emails before we got on here for the 25 people who got $10,000 practice based grants Right, like they're very excited about that piece of pie, right, but if they didn't get that piece of pie, it's just, they don't have to have that, you know.
Diane Scott:And so artists having diversified streams of revenue is something that we highly encourage. Of revenue is something that we highly encourage. This notion of a portfolio career where they have money coming in in a variety of different earned capacities, then contributed capacities, such as grants or crowdfunding or even individual patrons, and then also passive revenues. And especially in turbulent times like these, where we're not really sure, where everything is shaking out on all those things, you know, chances are pretty good that artists are going to weather, these things. They have this diversified stream of revenues and so if one piece turns off, they have a lot of different options to go to to heat the flame up on other things.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, so risk management.
David Holmes:Yeah, and I'm going to use that phrase, grants are a yummy component. I'm going to say that for now. I love that.
Drew Tucker:Yeah, I've always seen my, my income like a pie chart and I have like my ideal pie chart based on my goals, like I want to a family, well, touring. If touring is 75 on my pie chart, I've got to work toward the pie chart's, got to switch, so it always switches. But I always have like my ideal pie chart and then the pie chart as it is and I keep trying to move it. So, okay, well, now you know, kids are older, now I can tour more. So I'd love to make touring more of a thing, for example, example. So, and I think that constantly thinking about, because sometimes you can, there's immediate money in something and it's great, like you're touring, maybe you're hot right now, but your wife's pregnant. So if you can say like, ok, well, I'm going to make all the money that I can right now, well, what happens when you got to turn that faucet off, you know, and other things have sort of died out. You know, I deal with some of that with my arranging. Like I got kind of really into X, y, z and then I was like man, I really miss arranging. It would really be able to bring me in some more regular, regular income. So now it's time to, even though I'm making money in this area.
Drew Tucker:I you know oh, I'm sorry, I have two pie charts. I also have the pie chart of how I'm spending my time. So I have the pie chart of where I'm spending my time and obviously sometimes I'll be like, wow, I'm spending so much time writing and I only have two clients. Maybe I shouldn't be. You know, each of these is taking so much. Maybe I need to charge a lot more, or whatever the situation may be, wow, I'm spending so much time on the road. Or I'm spending so much time teaching lessons. That's probably a more common one, but I don't want to just be a teacher. I really need to perform a little bit. So maybe you might have to sacrifice a little bit of the now money to sort of develop that. So I have those two charts. Ideal, and hopefully your time chart matches your money chart is really that's always the ideal, right? So I have both of those, and those really help in becoming a in what you said a portfolio artist.
Diane Scott:I love the idea of having a time pie chart and so we regularly have artists do their portfolio of revenues and I have to say, if you keep a pie chart and you keep the records and you look year over year, you learn so much about it. But pairing that up with a a time pie chart, I feel like that's an exercise coming people's way soon. Yeah.
Drew Tucker:I realized how much time I was putting into things and then how much actual income. When I really looked at, I felt like I was putting into things and then how much actual income. When I really looked, I felt like I was getting a lot, because maybe the initial down payment was a lot. Man, I spent six months practicing for that and I got you know, x dollars for it, which only made up like two percent, and there's a even. And then maybe you can, maybe you can justify it by saying, yeah, but now I have all these other opportunities from that, etc.
Drew Tucker:There's always other benefits that in those you just have to measure out based on your ultimate goals and what you want. But you know, there's so much time when I see artists, it's like they're doing this and I'm like, yeah, but you're spending so much time over the past three years and you've gotten 2% of your income from this thing, like, but look at this thing. That's like begging you for more time. That just keeps on creeping up and if you actually focused on it, that would be able to build and then provide you more space to do this other thing. So, and again this goes back to asking the right questions about, about, about your, about your career.
Andy Heise:Well, dave, diane Drew, we usually ask all of our interviewees the same three questions at the end of our interviews, but given the topic matter and this panel discussion, I'm going to change. We're going to change it up a little bit on this last question. So the question is what's one systemic change you'd like to see in the grant world that would better serve entrepreneurial artists?
Drew Tucker:I would love to see more training for panelists that help them to identify great projects, not just great grant writers. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have to be meticulous, like Diane was saying earlier, and that you shouldn't. There's so many tools out there. It doesn't take much you don't have to have an advanced degree to correct some punctuation and make sure there's readability to what you're doing. However, there are certain people who have maybe cracked the code a little bit, who just understand how to do it and they kind of get all the grants because they're sort of they just get it but their project is sort of maybe the same all the time and they're not really adding too much to what's new. But then there's other projects that may not get it, that are deep projects that maybe a person wrote without the assistance of a grant writer. Maybe they're just less educated, maybe it's something from a more indigenous area and it speaks to accessibility, obviously. But if you can see that and see past maybe the fact that they're not communicating, you know there's maybe a lack there in other areas, perhaps with the way that they can communicate, that might not be fully in their control, and that you can see the project and say this project is great, like I could tell that this is a great project even though the grant was missing some sort of small things. And I would love to see more of a move to not watering down the quality or watering down the need for to see that effort in person and personal personality, but to be able to identify those, those maybe rare instances where there's a great project but it's just not written in the best way. Um, sure, and so that, so that, so that, and that's from the organization side, from the artist side, I would love to see just more of a an effort to be personal, especially as you start to ascend in your career and you have managers or grant writers. Um, I think it's really important that artists are putting their personal touch on it and they're making that sort of plea.
Drew Tucker:And there's a personal aspect to it, because we get a lot of grants that I know everyone's seen them where they're just like oh, you just repeated their bio in different ways for three of these questions or you know, there's a little bit of a lot, or this is a very pat answer, or, and it's just, there's no personality to it. It's a great person, super talented, or they're getting by on their, on their resume, solely Like well, this is what I've done, so why would you not, you know, be able to do this? And it's like well, because you didn't have, you didn't explain your project well and the people who were looking at it didn't understand what you were trying to do, so you could have 12 Grammys time. This project doesn't look like it's going to actually happen. So I think that, from an artist perspective even if you do, are privileged enough to have somebody help you with it, make sure that you look it over and add the personality it's okay to be, uh, to, to ask in a way that's heartfelt and authentic, even, and we, we, we tow this sort of middle line between having to be our own promoters and branders and and and advertising and marketing company, which takes a little bit of ego and a little bit of us talking about ourselves and selling ourselves, but then, when it comes time to ask, like you got to, sort of like put the other hat on and say, hey, this will mean a lot to me and sometimes we don't want to say that we need this Like this is going to mean a lot because I'm going to be able to finally live this out or do this or have the space to do this, and the pressure will be alleviated.
Drew Tucker:And I got to tell you I've been feeling all this pressure and when artists do that, even sometimes we hear from artists who you would never even think that would that, would say this or feel this way um, maybe they won Grammys or they're well known, but they're like I just need this space. So I, you know, I'm a victim of my own success. I have to tour relentlessly and I need break to create new music that's my music without people, me having to create music that may be successful, whatever that is, but when artists can do that and if we can get sort of that I don't want to say humility, but sort of that sense of like I can switch and I don't have to be that and I can, I feel comfortable being authentic and being vulnerable on these applications. I would like to see a little more vulnerability from artists, um, on their applications. Essentially Great essentially.
Diane Scott:Great. I have a couple of wishes, both as a grantor and a grantee. Of course, I'm super hot on the idea of moving over to trust-based granting, right Like. It's just such a game changer to be able to have the autonomy to use the funds in the way that you need to use them to support what you're doing, and so I believe in that for both artists, and it's lovely for our organization when we have the option to do that too. But the place that I'd really like to see go along with that is multi-year commitments. Right Like? A $10,000 injection for an individual artist, that's great. Like a $10,000 injection for an individual artist, that's great. But it is definitely not the same as a $10,000 annual injection for three years, right Like. Think about the power that comes with that and the kind of growth and opportunities that that brings, and it also, you know, kind of a nice part of this is it takes some of that administrative burden out of everybody, right Like if you've made it for three years too.
David Holmes:I would say that I would have to agree with Diane, particularly in the discussion about moving away from project-based to practice-based. I think that there is a way to report to a funder that maybe funders are afraid to find out about how an organization works as a whole or an individual does a project. I would like to see the organizational grants become more. We trust you to do the good work that you do. We just like to know what you did and have that be much more common. More operating support, more general. I just think that it keeps funders from sort of pushing too hard towards the project idea and it keeps.
David Holmes:I mean, I always tell nonprofits funders don't really want you to think of a new project all the time. They want you to be able to talk about how you're changing and how you're growing. But I don't think funders say that in a way that a lot of grant recipients, grant applicants, understand. I think that it's becomes trust-based. Philanthropy is something that is a fantastic movement. I think the more that that happens, the better, and it's getting smaller foundations, foundations that don't feel like they need to do this, to pay more attention to it and to understand it. I think that would be what I would like to see.
Drew Tucker:But I have a follow-up question though, and it would have to come from the top though, essentially because if we decided at some point to do mostly trust-based funding, but you're not getting the data back at all, our systems of measurement currently don't allow for more trust-based funding, and we'd have to change the system of measurement in order to do that, because it would have to be. How are we measuring success and impact and the use of these dollars? And I think that we haven't. I don't know that we've been doing that long enough as a nonprofit to be able to accurately see where that is yet. I mean, I'm sure it's somewhere right, but mostly I guess it would have to be anecdotal and is anecdotal enough.
David Holmes:Yeah, I like some of the examples from some foundations that are really committed to it and some of the guidance that they've given, and it is different for different types of programs and different types of grants, but I feel like there are ways to do it to get the data that you need and to make sure and to not make it overburdened for those organizations or individuals to report back on it. So I, I like, I like, I'm like a librarian at heart. I want to give everything away for free, but I, I, uh, I am looking to see how can we broaden this, because I know a lot of great organizations that run into the problem of not being able to tell their story in a way that organizations appreciate the whole picture. I think the more listening and the more discussion between funders and grantees, the better it's going to be.
Drew Tucker:I guess, though I guess I struggle with the lack of accountability. It seems that comes across in the conversation, whereas I think you know pendulum swing right, so you have your everything's, project-based everything's for the organization. It's like, okay, well, we need individual artists being left out and let's make it. You know, let's go individual artists, and then, all of a sudden, you know, then we start talking about practice-based and trust-based, trust-based uh granting, and it sounds great, but I feel like the pendulum might swing far towards like, okay, now we're just sending out this money and we have no contact. Like, what are the? I mean, when you speak about it, or you think about it as a systemic change, are you thinking about it like periods of accountability in those aspects? Like, are there any?
David Holmes:accountability or is it just here's the money go and hopefully they've done something good and they can check back in a year? No, I think there's definitely needs to be accountability. It's just it needs to be, in a way, explained to grantees in a way that they understand that that's part of what they're doing. Like we are trusting you with this unrestricted money, but here's what we expect in return and here's what we can make use of it. And again, I'm talking from a perspective of researching a lot of different grants. I'm not sitting there as a grant maker saying, oh, I need to collect this information so that my trustees or my board or whoever it is, is satisfied. I think that there are models that can be followed. But again, yeah, unrestricted, just here's a whole bunch of money, go, do whatever you want and we'll talk to you later is not the way I want to go either. So it's.
Diane Scott:Right, and that's certainly true.
Diane Scott:Right, you know, we combine professional development opportunities with the grants that we're giving, and so we have actually already been really systemically collecting information on the artists that we work with, and so we ask them about a lot of different measures and then we look at that longitudinally but, I will say, and so we can see movement in those things, and so there is some data to support this.
Diane Scott:That is hard data, not just anecdotal, but our anecdotal data is kind of amazing, right, the things that people share with us. And I feel like, because of this trusting relationship that comes where. It is not just oh, I need to make sure I check the boxes, I get the remainder of my grant refunds, you know, for things I've already done, it actually improves that relationship between us, between the grantor and the grantees, and it's a much deeper relationship where we really learn and talk about things. And you know, I'll say for sure, having done a lot of project-based granting, certainly you know the reports that we're getting back a lot of times. You know, certainly you know the reports that we're getting back a lot of times. You know, well, we have numbers of people or we have these things, or we did this, or I had six performances, or anything, but they're. They're never wholly reflective of the truth either, right, yeah.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Nick Petrella:That's a that's a really good point. So in our show notes, we're going to link to all of your websites. If there's any data or any articles or anything else you want us to put up, just send those to us and we'll get it up there. Well, this has been. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much to all of you for being with us today. You've provided invaluable advice for all of our listeners. It's been great. Thank you, thanks.
Diane Scott:Thanks so much for having us. What a fun conversation.
Andy Heise:Thanks everybody.
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