Morris Arts Grant

I went to the Morris Arts grant writing workshop and have revised our application accordingly. The revision is attached [see below]. Comments are welcome; please submit no later than July 24. Our final application is due in early August and I am aiming to have our submission complete by August 1.

Please note the financial chart in the application is my attempt to parse our results to fit the grant application’s terms. Chris is reviewing the numbers and will have an update/revision for me before I submit the application.

Most of the changes in this revision represent edits I received from Mike Agranoff (thank you Mike for a careful read through!) as well as some reorganization of the material that I made to go along with the Evaluation criteria that were shared with us at the grant writing workshop. I also added a couple of notes (see paragraph 2 of the narrative letter) about things that testify to our “artistic quality.” Any additional testimonials would be greatly appreciated!

When we submit the grant I would like to include some DVDs to highlight Minstrel, Tern, and Horses. Ditto for Getaway and Uke Fest, but I don’t know if you have DVDs. If each committee could supply me with 2 or 3 discs representing their best nights that’d be great. I’d also like to include some of our member performance nights at the Minstrel as well and would appreciate someone letting me know who I ask for those.

FWIW, at the workshop I got the impression that competition for awards will be particularly tough this year. There were probably 30 people at the session I attended and another 40 scheduled for the evening session. From what I could tell each person represented a separate organization. The grant administrator noted that these numbers were much increased compared to previous years. For reference, last year there were 30 grants totally about $52K, which is what Morris Arts expects to disburse this year as well. Average grants were between $1000 and $3000.

We are asking this year for a general operating grant. If we win this year that’ll be great as it gives us the most flexibility as to how to spend the money. If we don’t win this year, we might want to give thought to a special project and try again next year for a specific expenditure. Grants are awarded sometime in October of this year.

My apologies for the lateness of this report.

My thanks to Chris & Elizabeth who will be reviewing/supplying the financials and ADA checklist, respectively. And, thanks in advance to committee chairs whom I hope will supply DVDs!

Barbara Moo