On the Grants Gateway and the State of the Arts
Just completed our 2016 NYSCA application and it was nothing short of harrowing. The exhilration of getting the website to accept our application three minutes before the deadline was considerable. It felt like winning the world series or a Tony. Grants Gateway accepted our application!!!
During this process this year our company had not heeded the the dire warnings coming from the NYSCA office that this was going to be difficult. We were coping with being evicted from our space and looking for a new one. Trying to take on some new opportunities but not lose sight of our primary mission.
In the midst of this there comes THE DEADLINE.
The DEADLINE is the time when all grant materials must be received by.
It's 8:00pm on opening night of the first performance.
DEADLINES for government grants are sacrosanct. For most grants in general.
They must be adhered to and observed, they must be met or you are flung to the roadside.
What has set the NYSCA folks apart from the DCA over the years in my experience was that they actually took a curatorial interest in who they were funding. Someone came to see your work. In fact two people had to come to see your work.
You had to have site visits . It felt like someone cared if you were doing something that was actually of artistic merit or not. It was part of the competitive process.
When we can at The Drilling Company we try to throw deadlines to the roadside. We try whenever possible to let quality in the door even it appears to be a latecomer because in the end , no one really gives a quarter about whether we are on time - they care about whether we have anything interesting to say.
Ironically the folks who set up Grant systems have different priorities.
So while NYSCA in the past was set apart by it's adherence to the primacy of quality in the art it is less so now. It is now more in line with our digital age.
Now we are in the dawn of the age of Grants Gateway.
Grants Gateway is software, which has been sold to the state of Ne York to "streamline" their grant making process. There is nothing stream-like about Grants Gateway other that the feeling that you are drowning while you are trying to deal with it.
To be fair, the makes r of the software, Agate Software , have employed the
most friendly and congenial assistants at the helpdesk line. They respond promptly and efficiently to every question, no question is too stupid - they are great in every way.
What would be greater is if the makers of the software actually gave a darn about the users of the software.But it is clear , if you are using the software to make an application - that no one
who designed this software got a bit of input from people who actually write grants with it .
The absence of all sensitivity could best be described as the result of having a plumber design a theatre . There is nothing wrong with plumbers they simply should not be designing theatre .The list of complaints is so tremendously long one should probably start with the biggest problem and the largest problem by far is the lack of any clear explanation of how you were expected to fill out many required sites when applying for a grant.
The result as I endeavored to submit the grant was that constantly new "required" windows popped up even as I had finally inputted all necessary information for our request. Why couldn't these windows have been clearly set aside so one could see them?
For those employed by not-for -profit institutions with regular salaries , this may not have been a problem, but I know for those of us who are technically volunteers as the state would define it , it was overwhelmingly discouraging.
The software is a result of some thinking we need stricter oversight of how our public funds are being spent. This strict over sight is completely out of balance with the fiscal desire of Wall Street to have less restrictions and regulations. Most not -for -profit organizations are carefully schooled to run more like businesses. Ironically, the very forces exhorting them to run like businesses are placing the very restrictions and regulations on the application for funds that the businesses are begging to be free from via the Republican Party
Grants Gateway is the future Big Brother of Arts Funding and I cannot imagine it fashionable to call attention to the fact that there are many expectations of the process which can only be discovered through trial and error, I suppose after three or four years of applications
we will have curtailed our programming to fit the needs of the new application.
What's missing is the human element and anyone who is on the human end feels quite helpless when I speak with them. Everyone has a sense of surrender. There is a sense that nothing can be done to stop this crushing machine that allows very little space for the erratic artists and desires the creation of tidy responsible artist families and leaders.
It is an odd development for a field that is filled with individuals desperately hanging on , determined yet pragmatic.
After recently losing our space we said goodbye to several core artists in our company both literally and figuratively - perhaps a coincidence with losing the space. It was definitely a result of my own inability to reassure them that everything would be allright. The tide would turn. The work would be recognized. You will be taken seriously. You matter. Doing it well matters as much as doing it on time . More so. Less so. Less so.
During this process this year our company had not heeded the the dire warnings coming from the NYSCA office that this was going to be difficult. We were coping with being evicted from our space and looking for a new one. Trying to take on some new opportunities but not lose sight of our primary mission.
In the midst of this there comes THE DEADLINE.
The DEADLINE is the time when all grant materials must be received by.
It's 8:00pm on opening night of the first performance.
DEADLINES for government grants are sacrosanct. For most grants in general.
They must be adhered to and observed, they must be met or you are flung to the roadside.
What has set the NYSCA folks apart from the DCA over the years in my experience was that they actually took a curatorial interest in who they were funding. Someone came to see your work. In fact two people had to come to see your work.
You had to have site visits . It felt like someone cared if you were doing something that was actually of artistic merit or not. It was part of the competitive process.
When we can at The Drilling Company we try to throw deadlines to the roadside. We try whenever possible to let quality in the door even it appears to be a latecomer because in the end , no one really gives a quarter about whether we are on time - they care about whether we have anything interesting to say.
Ironically the folks who set up Grant systems have different priorities.
So while NYSCA in the past was set apart by it's adherence to the primacy of quality in the art it is less so now. It is now more in line with our digital age.
Now we are in the dawn of the age of Grants Gateway.
Grants Gateway is software, which has been sold to the state of Ne York to "streamline" their grant making process. There is nothing stream-like about Grants Gateway other that the feeling that you are drowning while you are trying to deal with it.
To be fair, the makes r of the software, Agate Software , have employed the
most friendly and congenial assistants at the helpdesk line. They respond promptly and efficiently to every question, no question is too stupid - they are great in every way.
What would be greater is if the makers of the software actually gave a darn about the users of the software.But it is clear , if you are using the software to make an application - that no one
who designed this software got a bit of input from people who actually write grants with it .
The absence of all sensitivity could best be described as the result of having a plumber design a theatre . There is nothing wrong with plumbers they simply should not be designing theatre .The list of complaints is so tremendously long one should probably start with the biggest problem and the largest problem by far is the lack of any clear explanation of how you were expected to fill out many required sites when applying for a grant.
The result as I endeavored to submit the grant was that constantly new "required" windows popped up even as I had finally inputted all necessary information for our request. Why couldn't these windows have been clearly set aside so one could see them?
For those employed by not-for -profit institutions with regular salaries , this may not have been a problem, but I know for those of us who are technically volunteers as the state would define it , it was overwhelmingly discouraging.
The software is a result of some thinking we need stricter oversight of how our public funds are being spent. This strict over sight is completely out of balance with the fiscal desire of Wall Street to have less restrictions and regulations. Most not -for -profit organizations are carefully schooled to run more like businesses. Ironically, the very forces exhorting them to run like businesses are placing the very restrictions and regulations on the application for funds that the businesses are begging to be free from via the Republican Party
Grants Gateway is the future Big Brother of Arts Funding and I cannot imagine it fashionable to call attention to the fact that there are many expectations of the process which can only be discovered through trial and error, I suppose after three or four years of applications
we will have curtailed our programming to fit the needs of the new application.
What's missing is the human element and anyone who is on the human end feels quite helpless when I speak with them. Everyone has a sense of surrender. There is a sense that nothing can be done to stop this crushing machine that allows very little space for the erratic artists and desires the creation of tidy responsible artist families and leaders.
It is an odd development for a field that is filled with individuals desperately hanging on , determined yet pragmatic.
After recently losing our space we said goodbye to several core artists in our company both literally and figuratively - perhaps a coincidence with losing the space. It was definitely a result of my own inability to reassure them that everything would be allright. The tide would turn. The work would be recognized. You will be taken seriously. You matter. Doing it well matters as much as doing it on time . More so. Less so. Less so.
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