12 Application Tips

1. You are strongly encouraged to discuss your project and proposal with the commission staff before a grant deadline. By doing so, you may help reduce the chance of making technical errors or omitting critical information from your request. It is also an opportunity to learn about possible changes in the commission's grant policies, the application process, and available funds. Our staff is your advocate and advisor, ready to lend a helping hand.
2. First-time applicants may find it useful to read well-written proposals prepared by previous grantees. Ask our office for copies of successful requests before taking the plunge.
3. Carefully consider the commission's application dates (February 1, June 1, September 1) in order to match your proposed project with the appropriate grant competition. If you are uncertain when to apply, contact our office for assistance.
4. Develop an organized, fully-developed narrative which explains what you are proposing to do and how you plan to do it. Most requests suffer from too little detail rather than too much. Provide a clear description of the planned activity including specific dates, times, locations, and the names and qualifications of participating artists. Be mindful that there are eight advisory panelists and eleven Cultural Affairs Commission members who will read your submission. Don't assume they know more than they do about you and your project.
5. If your proposal is easy to understand, it will be easier to approve for funding. Describe your activity in a simple, straight-forward style. Leave pretentious language to art critics and catalog essayists. We prefer plain English--and, in fact, we know of no funding source anywhere that wants it otherwise.
6. Inject some excitement into your proposal. Tuck in a short quote by a participating artist or organizer to perk up your narrative. The enthusiasm you and others express about your project can be infectious.
7. Successful proposals are ones which clearly articulate the desired results that the project will have on your immediate audiences, neighborhood, or other service area. The commission is also interested in knowing more about the lasting, positive impact you hope your project will have on the larger community.
8. The most commonly made mistakes in proposal writing occur in the math department. Don't ignore your budget pages! Your figures should be realistic and accurate. Check and recheck your addition, then ask someone else to run your numbers through a calculator again. Above all else, make sure that your projected cash income equals your projected cash expenditures. If your budget includes admission fees or other earned revenue as cash income, or if it includes honoraria or other personnel fees, be certain to provide detailed itemizations on a separate page. This is a requirement, so you won't want to overlook it.
9. Everyone makes mistakes. A skilled grantwriter always asks a trusty colleague to critique a preliminary proposal draft, searching for typos, grammatical errors, fuzzy syntax, and other goofs and gaps. Take a tip from the pros.
10. Letters of support are an important part of a grant request. Make the effort to enclose several letters from the community which endorse the merits of the proposed activity or which speak to the credentials of the participating artists and the quality of their work. Let others help you tell us how special your project is.
11. Our panelists are smart, savvy and fair-minded, but they are developing weak backs. Don't overload your proposal with mountains of unnecessary or poorly reproduced materials. Attach the following to your original application plus eight copies: short resumes, a few endorsement letters, and program schedules or itineraries. Attach the following to your original application plus eight copies: short resumes, press reviews of earlier work, a few endorsement letters, and program schedules or itineraries. Attach one set of work samples and original information to the original application only.
12. Little gold stars are reserved in heaven for those applicants who file their proposals early. Frequently, the grants go to them as well. Most unsuccessful applicants concede that their proposals were casualties of last-minute scrambles. Yours, of course, will be prepared weeks in advance, the result of thoughtful planning, consulting, writing and editing. Good for you!

If you have questions about the grant application and review process, please contact the Cultural Affairs Office at 608-266-5915 or cultural.affairs@co.dane.wi.us