New England Dance Fund Webinar

The New England Dance Fund awards grants to New England-based choreographers of all genres and backgrounds who identify an opportunity that will advance their careers in dance. Learn more about New England Dance Fund

ASL interpretation provided by Interpreter Now

Video Content

• 00:00 Welcome & Land Acknowledgement
• 06:32 NEFA's Dance Department Staff Introductions
• 08:00 Webinar Overview
• 08:55 New England Foundation for the Arts Overview
• 11:09 New England Dance Fund Overview
• 12:08 Eligibility
• 15:07 CreativeGround Overview
• 16:02 How to Apply
• 22:20 Application Materials and Details
• 27:15 Reporting
• 28:31 New England Dance Fund 2022 Timeline

Video Transcript

Indira Goodwine: Welcome and thank you for joining us for this 2022 New England Dance Fund Informational webinar. At the New England Foundation for the Arts, we believe that a land acknowledgement is necessary, yet only a first part of a much more engaged process towards deeply rooted healing and reconciliation. We see the role of the arts as an opportunity to uplift and uphold truth and recognize our responsibility to not perpetuate the erasure of peoples. Therefore, as a committed ally and as artists, we wish to acknowledge that the grounds on which our offices are located are the traditional, current, and future lands of the Massachusett, Naumkeag, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag peoples. We recognize that many Indigenous peoples have come to this place and the connection between displacement and removal. So, we honor their presence. We also acknowledge the many Indigenous people and lands where our distributed staff live and work, and where we hold events and continue to provide support for artists and communities, both regionally and nationally. The National Dance Project Team are joining today from the lands of the Massachusett, Mohican, Naumkeag, Nipmuck, Pawtucket, Wampanoag, and Munsee Lenape peoples. We honor their ancestors past, present, and future, and recognize their continued existence and contributions to our society. Furthermore, we recognize the many Native lands in which all of you are joining us from across the region and respect the choices you make in honoring and recognizing the caretakers of those lands. It is also important to acknowledge those of you in attendance and your respective ancestors who did not come to this land by choice, and those who did. We live in a nation founded on the genocide of Native people, stolen land, displacement, and enslavement of Africans whose resources and free labor established wealth and prosperity for their oppressors. We wish to honor all of these people whose hard work and lives were lost in the struggles for liberation and decolonization. The process of colonization and relationship to power has helped to foster continued centuries of racism, colorism, sexism, classism, ableism, and oppression of those viewed as other that still exist today. The advancement of structural inequities actively promotes cultural genocide, and dare I say hatred, particularly within and against Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities. Within our work, New England Foundation for the Arts strives to counter these inequities including race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, age, language, culture, nation of origin, and geography, and those living at the intersectionality of identity.

Cheri Opperman: Since our activities are being shared digitally to the internet, let us also take a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within the technology, structures, and ways of thinking we use every day. So many tech companies in what some now call Silicon Valley are headquartered on the lands of the Ohlone and Tamyen people, who have resided there for more than 10,000 years, and while they are still there, the Ohlone and Tamyen people, as well as other people of color, continue to face displacement, labor exploitation, environmental racism, and more as we rely on advancing technologies to stay connected during this pandemic and beyond. We must recognize the impact of this industry, and while the resources being used stretches across all lands, access to equipment and high-speed internet are not available in many Indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the art we make leaves significant carbon footprints, contributing to changing climates that disproportionately affect Indigenous people worldwide. We feel it is important to reflect on this as we continue to use these digital spaces to connect. Lastly, New England Foundation for the Arts understands this process requires a constant state of learning and growth and we are committed to doing the work that ensures our acknowledgment is directly linked to accountability and action. It is a journey we are on both collectively and individually across the organization. We expect our shared education and efforts will be reflected in multiple revisions of our written land acknowledgment over time, as well as other direct actions that continue to uplift the Indigenous people on whose land we have the privilege of working. I invite you to join us in acknowledging all of this, as well as our collective responsibility to make good of this time and consider our roles in decolonization and allyship. We will now pause for a moment of silence to honor and reflect on the deep history of these lands and its people. Thank you.

Indira: Hello again, and thank you for joining us for today's webinar. While our cameras will be off throughout this informational webinar to highlight slides, we are sharing an image of who we are and will acknowledge how we identify at this time. My name is Indira Goodwine, and I am the Program Director for Dance at New England Foundation for the Arts. My pronouns are she, her, and hers. I am a brown-skinned Black woman who, in this image, has long black braids and is wearing a coral dress with a necklace that has white triangles on it.

Cheri: Hello, my name is Cheri Opperman, and I am the Senior Grants Manager for Dance at NEFA. My pronouns are she/her and I am a white woman who, in this image, has short dark brown hair, and wearing dark eyeglasses and a red collared shirt and red glass earrings.

Kristin Gregory: My name is Kristin Gregory. I am the Program Manager for Dance at NEFA, and my pronouns are she, her, and hers. I am a light-skinned white woman who, in this image, has shoulder-length, straight, dyed blonde hair, a maroon V-neck T-shirt, and a white quartz pendant necklace.

Indira: For today's webinar, we will provide important information related to the New England Dance Fund, inclusive of a New England Foundation for the Arts overview, a New England Dance Fund overview, eligibility, a CreativeGround overview, how to apply, application materials and details, reporting, and the New England Dance Fund 2022 timeline. As a reminder, everything that is shared today can also be found on New England Foundation for the Arts's website. New England Foundation for the Arts was founded in 1976 as one of six regional arts organizations established with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to strengthen regional arts opportunities. Today, New England Foundation for the Arts' programs are regional, national, and international in scope, and support artists and communities through grants and other opportunities in dance, music, theater, and public art. New England Foundation for the Arts' mission is to invest in artists and communities and foster equitable access to the arts, enriching the cultural landscape in New England and the nation. Through our various efforts, we believe we can achieve our ultimate vision to contribute to a nation where artists flourish and communities celebrate art as essential to a thriving, equitable society. Each program and project that is brought to life at New England Foundation for the Art is created with the underlying goal of building a stronger and more dynamic infrastructure for the arts. We achieve these goals by leaning on our core values and continuously deepening our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. New England Foundation for the Arts values an equitable, diverse, and inclusive world, which we interpret as all people having fair access to the tools and resources they need to realize creative and community endeavors. We acknowledge structural inequities that have excluded individuals and communities from opportunity based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, language, culture, age, genre, and geography, and strive to counter those inequities in our work.

Cheri: Through the New England Dance Fund, New England Foundation for the Arts will award grants of $500 to $1,000 directly to choreographers who identify and articulate an important activity or opportunity that will significantly impact aspects of their dance making. The New England Dance Fund gives priority to timely opportunities with the goal of supporting a diverse group of artists from a range of cultures, disciplines, aesthetics, and career stages throughout all six New England states. We could not do this without the generosity of our funders. The New England Dance Fund is generously supported by the Aliad Fund at the Boston Foundation. To be eligible for the New England Dance Fund, choreographers must have a CreativeGround profile with dance as the primary discipline (and we will go into CreativeGround a bit later in our presentation); reside full-time and create in one of the six New England states; fulfill the requirements and reports for grant recipients (if awarded); be applying for an opportunity that will take place between November 1st, 2022 through October 31st of 2023; applicants may be individuals, a 501 3 organization, or be fiscally sponsored; your application may request funding for one or more of the following activities or opportunities: residencies, research trips, conferences, workshops or other trainings that build creative or administrative skills, tour planning, publication expenses, fees associated with music or musicians, process documentation or archival projects, videography, videographer, or photo shoots, documentation, and editing, artist fees needed to prepare a work for a presentation opportunity, hiring a consultant, or mentorship. Please reach out to the dance team if you are unsure of your eligibility or the nature of your request for the New England Dance Fund.

Indira: Applicants who are not eligible to apply include choreographers who received support through the New England Dance Fund during the September 2021 deadline round. Please note, current grantees must complete their funded activities and take off one deadline round before regaining eligibility. Additionally, artists with overdue grantee reports for any New England Foundation for the Arts programs are deemed ineligible. To regain eligibility, outstanding grantee reports must be submitted online to New England Foundation for the Arts by September 1st, 2022. The New England Dance Fund does not support ongoing operations or activity, or schools, studios, and youth programs. If you have questions regarding the eligibility of your activity or opportunity, please do not hesitate to contact us prior to applying.

Kristin: As part of eligibility for the New England Dance Fund, applications must have an up-to-date profile on CreativeGround, which is a searchable directory of creatives, culture bearers, artists, and arts and cultural organizations based in the six New England states. The directory is free for users and its primary goal is to connect the creative sector across the New England region. You can make a profile for free at CreativeGround.org. Applications for the New England Dance Fund are available online at nefa.org, no less than four weeks in advance of the deadline. To start a new application, use the navigation bar to find the New England Dance Fund landing page, and click the "Start Your Application" button, which will be made available when the application is online. If you have already started an application, please use the "Return To My Application" button. Please only use the "Start Your Application" button once (which is only available, again, when applications are online). Clicking the "Start Your Application" button will bring you to a brand new blank form each time. If you have already started entering information into a form, and you use the "Start Your Application" button again, you will not see that information in the new form. Clicking either of those buttons will bring you to our portal log-in screen. In recent years, we have moved to a new online grant system. Some of you who may not have applied to New England Foundation for the Arts before or may not have applied for several years may have to create a new account. You can learn more about navigating the new portal on our blog. When creating a new account, we recommend a username that is close to your email and memorable. However, please keep in mind that the portal will not accept an email as a username. If you enter an @ symbol, the portal will not accept that or anything after the @ symbol. For example, my email is kgregory@nefa.org. For a username, I would use "kgregory." If you already have an account and can't remember your username or password, please use the "Forget Your Password" hyperlink below the sign-in box. It's much easier and more efficient than requesting a new password through a staff member, as we are not able to view passwords and can only reset them. If you are still having difficulty accessing your account or if you are having any application submission issues or need tech support once you have logged in, please contact tech@nefa.org. We hope that this portal system is more easily navigated, and more accessible, though we continue to address access issues. If you need an alternate format to apply, please contact our Accessibility Coordinator Jane Preston at jpreston@nefa.org. After you have logged into the portal, if you are using the "Start Your Application," you will be taken to a blank application form immediately. We recommend entering at least your name and project title first and hitting save immediately. That will ensure that you can view and return to the form at any time. To return to a started form, use the "Resume My Application" button, which will bring to the portal's main dashboard viewed here. You should see the form that you have started in the "Open Items" tab on your dashboard. There will be two images next to the form, a small magnifying glass and a small symbol that looks like a notepad. To edit the form, click on the notepad symbol. If you have previously applied to New England Foundation for the Arts grants through this portal system, you can access those previous applications in the "Closed Items" tab any time you wish. You are welcome to reference previous applications at any time. Please save your form often. Our system, unfortunately, does not auto-save for you, and if you have not physically clicked the save button, information that has been entered may disappear, and we are not able to get it back for you. We recommend viewing the form and copying information over into a Word or Google Doc and working, editing your application from there. After which, you can copy and paste the information back into the form in the portal when it's ready. If you are working outside of the portal in a Word or Google Doc, please do pay attention to the character counts. Unfortunately, if you go over the character count in a response, there's nothing that we can do that can allow you to submit with the additional characters. We are not able to override that. Characters do include special characters, spaces, and paragraph marks. So, those do count towards your overall character count. Also, please note that special formatting, like bold or italics, will not appear in the form, and bullets and numbering may not appear in the same way that they would appear in a Word document, and they may take up extra characters. So, if you want to use numbers or bulleting, maybe add a little extra time as you're copying and pasting to make sure you're not over character count.

Indira: Prior to answering the narrative questions, you must complete the following applicant information. First, a name for this New England Dance Fund request. It is important that you enter a name for this request that will allow you to identify this grant from any other New England Foundation for the Arts grant forms currently in progress on your portal dashboard, and, of course, save the form. Please note, once the form has been submitted, the system may alter the form name if needed. We also ask that you provide a one-sentence description for your request and a short summary of the activity or opportunity to be used in New England Foundation for the Arts' communications, should your request be awarded. Secondly, you will need to include an artist biography. We ask that you provide biographies of the applicants and anyone else integral to the activity or opportunity, such as additional artists, choreographers, any lead collaborators, or mentors. As part of the New England Dance Fund application, we ask the following four narrative questions that will help our reviewers understand more about your request:

1. What is the activity or opportunity for which you are requesting support? Describe the specific elements of the activity or opportunity that would be funded through this request.
2. Why do you want to engage in this activity or opportunity at this time?
3. How will this activity or opportunity advance your dance making? Include your ideal outcome or outcomes for this activity or opportunity.
4. And lastly, we ask that you please outline the timeline or work plan for this activity or opportunity.

Cheri: The budget contains two sections, the top section is for expenses. Please use the line item or items to align with what you are requesting in your narrative. For instance, if you are requesting to video a dance work, please put the fees to pay the videographer in the contractor fee section. If renting space, add that into the space rental section, and other costs associated with editing the shoot could go into the documentation section. If applying to travel and participate in a residency, please include the expenses not picked up by the residency partner, which might include housing, per diem, travel, et cetera, into those line items. The numbers will not add up until you hit the save button, and these were just examples of potential requests. The next section is the revenue section, and in this section, please note that the budget does not have to balance out. You may list any other funding sources, as well as any in-kind support you may be receiving. The amount requested is where you put in the amount you are requesting for this grant opportunity. Please note that the maximum grant amount is $1,000. The reviewers do not weigh requests under the maximum with any more favor than those requests that actually request the maximum, or $1,000 grant. Additional materials. In order for the required field to be satisfied to submit the online application form, you must upload a W-9 document. However, please upload a blank W-9 form at the time of your submission. Should you be awarded, you will be notified by email, and at that time, we will ask you to provide financial information for grant payments, who you listed as the payee in the form. Please note that all grantees will receive a 1099 form from New England Foundation for the Arts by late January of 2023.

Kristin: All grantees will be given access to the final report upon notification of their grant award status. You can view the final report materials in the portal at any time. By logging back into the portal, you will see an arrow next to your original application which will then open into the grant report. Grant reports are due within 40 days of the activity or opportunity completion. The activity or opportunity completion date is determined by the original dates that you enter during the application stage. If at any time during your grant period, the activity gets delayed, please be in touch with us so that we can adjust the due date for your grant report to match the activity date. If you are interested in applying to additional New England Foundation for the Arts grants, but have a current report due to New England Foundation for the Arts, please be in touch with the New England Foundation for the Arts grant staff administering that grant in order to determine your eligibility status based on your current grant timeline. As an overview of the 2022 New England Dance Fund timeline:

• The deadline is September 23rd, 2022, at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time. The application is available and open to be submitted until 11:59 PM, but please keep in mind that New England Foundation for the Arts grant staff will not be available after 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on the deadline day.
• The activity period is November 1st, 2022 through October 31st, 2023.
• Applicants are notified of their award status by mid-November of 2022, and all funds will be paid in full to grantees within six weeks of notification.
• And, finally, your report, again, is due within 40 days of completing the funded activity or opportunity.

Indira: Thank you for watching the 2022 New England Dance Fund informational webinar. As always, should you have any questions, we encourage you to contact us prior to submitting your application on September 23rd, 2022. All of our contact information can be found on this current slide, as well as on New England Foundation for the Arts' website. Until next time, we hope you, your loved ones, and community remain safe and healthy.