Watch the Cultural Sustainability Webinar

Watch this webinar to learn more about the Cultural Sustainability in advance of the deadline on November 21. 

Read the Transcript

Audrey Seraphin: Morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody, and welcome. We're just going to take a moment to let folks trickle in, but thanks so much for being here this morning

Saejin Yoo: Audrey, I'm happy to jump in and share our land acknowledgement.

Audrey: Great. Awesome. Take it away. Welcome. We're going to talk about Cultural Sustainability today. That is all I had to say, and I'll hand it back over to Sae.

Sae: Great. So at the New England Foundation for the Arts, we believe that one of the roles of the arts is to make the invisible visible. We also believe that it is not the responsibility of those who have been made invisible to remind us that they are still here. Therefore, as a committed ally and as artists, NEFA wishes to acknowledge that the ground on which we are meeting is the traditional lands of the Massachuset, Wampanoag and Nipmuc people. We honor their ancestors past, present and future and recognize their continued existence and contributions to our society. To find out what land you're on, visit native-land.ca, and thank you, Adrienne. It's in the chat. I also want to just mention, to turn captions on during this meeting, you can click on the captions button in your Zoom controls usually found at the bottom of the screen for Zoom. Right.

Audrey: Here are your captions instructions in writing if you are a visual learner. All right, so now we're going to introduce the team. We have our main program staff on the slide here. My name is Audrey Seraphin. I use she/her pronouns. I am calling in from Allston in Boston, Massachusetts, today on Massachuset and Pawtucket land, and I am joined by my colleagues also from New England Foundation for the Arts, more commonly known as NEFA, and welcome. Thank you for being here to learn about Cultural Sustainability, which is a new exciting program we're jazzed to tell you about. I'm the program manager for regional grants and initiatives, and for my NEFA colleagues, we're doing a fun intro question which folks can also enter in the chat if you want to say hello, give us your pronouns, lands that you're on, maybe organization that you're with, and favorite fall beverage, which for me, I am feeling a little nostalgic this morning, and so my favorite fall beverage is the no-longer-in-existence Dunkaccino. I would like to smell it again. It was one of my favorite fall things. I'm still seeking, selfishly asking this question because I'm still seeking a replacement fall beverage, and I will pass it back over to Sae.

Sae: Thanks, Audrey. Hi, everyone. My name is Saejin Yoo. I use she/her pronouns, and I'm the program coordinator for regional initiatives, and I would have to say that my favorite fall beverage is a very hot, very cinnamony apple cider. Great, and I'll pass it over to Adrienne.

Adrienne Petrillo: Good morning, everyone. I'm Adrienne Petrillo, she/her. I'm the senior program director for regional grants and international exchange, calling in today from Massachuset and Pawtucket land, and my favorite fall beverage would be a London Fog, which is a Earl Gray tea latte, so, and if you want to know the best places to get one, happy to do that offline. Thanks. Back to Audrey and Sae.

Sae: Awesome. Thank you. We are also joined by our colleagues, Natalya and Abby, who will be saying hi a little bit later, but we will dive right into our agenda for today. We're going to give you an overview of the Cultural Sustainability program, going into some details about the program goals, eligibility, application and other requirements. Abby Southwell, our technology and data director, will join us later to talk a little bit about the grant portal and how to log in and apply there, and Natalya, who is our program manager of CreativeGround, will speak about CreativeGround towards the end, and we're hoping to leave about 15 minutes at the end for questions. If you do have questions, and I already see a hand raised, but ideally, if you could please put those in the Q&A function or the chat, that would be great. Otherwise, we will call on you, and have some answers and questions after we do our little overview.

Audrey: Great. Thank you. So a little bit of history about the Cultural Sustainability program. This is a new initiative being supported by the Wallace Foundation. NEFA, which is one of six regional arts organizations, also known as RAOs, is working on this program to deliver the Cultural Sustainability across, RAOs are delivering it across the country, and NEFA is delivering it here in New England. So this, our program is focused specifically on the six states in our region, but there are other versions of it across the US. This program was developed collaboratively, including through a core team of staff composed from each person at each RAO who informed the design of the program. All of the RAOs did also consult with community members to incorporate feedback, especially when it came to the regional design of the program. So we appreciate the work of our program ambassadors who have supported this process, and I also really want to thank Audrey and Sae who have been leading it from the NEFA side. So what is Cultural Sustainability? It will provide operating support for small arts organizations of color. Our hope is that these resources will allow organizations of color to sustain and expand their practices, impact the communities they serve, and provide excellent arts and cultural experiences for larger cross-cultural audiences. These are non-matching. I will say that again. These are non-matching grants up to $100,000 or 20% of the organizational expenses, and we will get more into the exact grant amounts and budgets later in this webinar. In addition to the grant funding, there will also be a learning cohort opportunity, which we'll talk about a little bit more, but this is a mix of a funding program as well as a learning program, and I will pass it back to Sae to talk a little bit more about the timeline.

Sae: Great. So we opened the application portal on September 17th, just a week ago, and we'll be accepting any accessibility accommodation requests that you may need by October 31st. So please shoot me an email if you have any requests. I can also drop that email into the chat. The deadline for Cultural Sustainability applications will be Thursday, November 21st. The application deadline will be at 11:59 Eastern Time. So we're giving folks about nine weeks to fill out this application, ask any questions, seek support. We'll have our reviewers look over applications and hold a panel meeting later on, early next year, and we'll be notifying our applicants of awards in March 2025. So for grantees, that grant period will be about 13 months from May 1st, 2025, until June 15th of 2026. Next slide please. So for our grantees, we'll have the learning cohort. That will be the post-award activity. So for that grant period, grantees will be participating in organizational support and a learning cohort with one another for the full period of the award, and NEFA staff will be holding one-on-one meetings and surveys to assess grantee needs at the time of the grant agreement, and we'll develop a curriculum that serves our grantees. The full cohort will meet once a month virtually, and we'll also be holding an in-person meeting at the NEFA office once during grant period. Next slide please. Great. I'm going to jump into talking about eligibility. So applicant organizations must have reported under $500,000 in annual operating expenses in their two most recent fiscal years of tax filings, and we'll be reviewing that through your tax filings. The following types of organizations are eligible to apply, and these are 501c3 nonprofits. Fiscally sponsored groups and organizations are eligible to apply, or also eligible is artist-centered or led LLCs, S corporations, limited or general partnerships, and also eligible are federal or state-recognized tribal governments. So also for eligibility, all Cultural Sustainability applicants must have at least three years of creative practice or arts programming, have significant arts and cultural presence in New England, which is Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, an up-to-date profile on CreativeGround, NEFA's creative economy database, which we'll talk later on, and a Unique Entity ID, so a UEI in SAM.gov. Right. Just want to touch on this really quickly. These are the who's not eligible for Cultural Sustainability: individuals, units of local, state or federal government, and schools. This includes K through 12, preschool, colleges, and universities, both public and private. Great, and I'll hand it over to you, Audrey.

Audrey: Thanks so much, Sae, and thank you again, everyone, for being here, both NEFA staff and participants. So the real question, how much is this grant for? We have a little bit of a process for that. So organizations can request funding based on their annual operating expenses, which as Sae said, will be pulled from your tax filings or from a profit and loss sheet if you do not file taxes. So organizations with budgets under $100,000 can request up to $25,000. Organizations with budgets over 100,000 but under 250,000 can request up to $50,000, and organizations with budgets between 250,000 and $500,000 can request up to $100,000. Our minimum grant amount for this program will be $20,000. Partial funding may be granted according to score and panelist review and alignment with funding criteria, but no organization will be funded at lower than 80% of their initial request. I would say unlike a lot of federal programs that our team has worked with, Cultural Sustainability grants are unrestricted operating support and therefore do not need to be related to a specific project. So eligible expenses that you could spend your Cultural Sustainability grant on include but are not limited to staff salaries, supplies, equipment, rent, utilities, project costs, professional development, endowments and operating reserves. Grantees are allowed to utilize their funding at their discretion. The only real restrictions on this non-matching grant are capital projects, such as construction of new building and renovations, and land purchases. Also, if you are a for-profit entity applying for Cultural Sustainability, your funds may not be for the sole benefit of any private shareholder or individual. The application portal is currently open, and when you start a new application, you will be able to see these narrative questions. You can also preview narrative application questions on the Cultural Sustainability webpage on the NEFA website. Our five narrative questions are, tell us about your organizations and any values that drive your work. Describe the community you serve. How are you addressing your community's needs and interests through your work, and how has community support directly contributed to your organization's success? How will this grant impact your organization's work and the wellbeing of the community you serve? What could the pilot program and learning cohort provide you with to support your work, unique expertise and knowledge? Please use this space to provide any additional information about your organization's identity as an organization of color that you would like reviewers to know. And that fifth question is optional. The first four are required. In addition to these, additional application questions will include uploads of financial documents, basic applicant contact info and other information that will allow our review panelists to get to know your organization. So the question we probably get most often is, what makes a successful application? That's true of any of our grant programs, but for Cultural Sustainability, successful applications will demonstrate cultural impact in New England and beyond, model equitable practice in artistic and administrative activities, display clear planning and progress towards sustainability of services and programming. Successful applications will indicate that they're ready to enthusiastically participate and contribute actively to a learning cohort and that they illustrate mission alignment with Cultural Sustainability. So those are sort of the five main criteria folks will be evaluated on, and those sort of align with the narrative questions directly. We may also be giving or additional priority will be given to arts organizations who have a staff and board that reflect and represent the communities that they serve, produce cultural work that preserves or advances Indigenous or immigrant art or traditions, provide economic benefit to artists of color, and are based in and served a rural New England community. We will also be deprioritizing grantees of other substantial granting opportunities, specifically ArtsHERE and the Powering Cultural Futures grants. So in addition to all of the application questions I mentioned, all applicants must have an up-to-date CreativeGround profile, which, as we said, is the primary tool for network and knowledge building across New England's creative economy and is a free resource for all creative economy participants to utilize, but I am not the expert in this. So I am going to pause my screen share here and kick it over to Natalya, who will be giving you a short tutorial today on how to update your CreativeGround to meet the Cultural Sustainability's requirements.

Natalya Tausanovitch: Yeah. Thank you, Audrey. This is Natalya Tausanovitch speaking. I'm program manager for creative economy at NEFA, and I'm going to share my screen here to show you the CreativeGround website. So thumbs up, Audrey, if you can see that. Awesome. Great. So we're looking at the creativeground.org homepage here. CreativeGround is a project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, and it is the dynamic regional directory that celebrates the vital work of New England's creative people and places. It is a community-generated and free online tool that supports a region-wide creative network, and in addition to supporting your Cultural Sustainability application, it provides you or your organization or business with extra visibility across our region, and within this national program, this additional resource is unique to our region. So any organizations, businesses, individuals in the creative landscape of New England can get listed with a free profile and can also search. Anyone can search the directory of over 30,000 profiles of other creative entities in the region to discover and connect with other resources in your communities. So I will go over a quick demo on getting started with or updating your profile here, and I do want to note, we'll drop it in the chat, but on the NEFA website under the Cultural Sustainability page, there are guidelines written out that you can follow step by step. So this is a great resource, but I'll just show you what this would look like if you're following these guidelines. So the first thing you'll want to do is to register for a user account on this registration page if you don't have one already. Takes about a minute or two, and once you are registered and logged in, you will get to this account dashboard where you can create or update your profile for yourself, your organization, your business. So I'm going to navigate here to create a new public profile. We do ask that you search for your organization business entity first before creating a profile because the directory is a unique blend of kind of community-generated and public data sources. If you are a nonprofit, you likely already have a profile listed in CreativeGround, and you should claim it first rather than creating a new one just so we reduce duplication of profiles. So your first step will be to search for your organization using our keyword search, and if you do find that your organization already has a profile on CreativeGround, you'll go through the process to claim this profile, so using this kind of button on the profile, but if you don't find an existing profile for your organization, can go back to your dashboard and create a new one. So clicking create profile will bring up this blank form to fill out, and you'll want to fill out all of the fields marked with a red asterisk, as these are required to create your basic profile, and as you're doing this, referencing the CreativeGround requirements for Cultural Sustainability page to fill out a few additional fields that are not required by the site to create a profile but that you'll want to fill out to make sure that your profile meets the requirements for this program. Once you have created your profile with its basic information, you'll see it in your dashboard where you can edit it at any time, and there are a few other sections that you'll want to give some attention to. So you have basic required information, but you'll also want to fill out some required fields in Profile Images and other Media, I Have Worked With, and this Affiliations & Accomplishments section as well. And once you're all done, your profile will look something like this. It's just an example with media, a description, more information about your organization, your business in this About section and a media section and I Have Worked With connections that demonstrate your work. And if you do need technical support with your CreativeGround profile, that's, again, all listed. Those resources are listed on this page for Cultural Sustainability, but you can contact us at creativeground@nefa.org, and we also have some resources on the site itself under this Resources tab so for frequently asked questions and other ways you can get in touch with us for technical support. All right, and I will hand it back to Sae.

Sae: Great. Thank you so much, Natalya. All right. So I'm going to talk about the application platform, and to access the application for Cultural Sustainability, please visit the program's webpage on NEFA's website. I'll be handing it over to Abby Southwell, our technology and data director, who will be giving a brief tutorial of how to access NEFA's grant portal. Abby, take it away.

Abby Southwell: Thanks, Sae. Hi, everyone, Abby Southwell. I'm NEFA's technology and data director. Audrey, we're seeing, like, the preview and not the full slides. Could we change if you can? Sorry. And while I'm saying that, I'll answer the question about my favorite fall beverage just to vamp for some time, which is a chai latte. Chai latte, all the time, all seasons, but hot chai latte into the fall, switching from iced in the summer. While we're getting the slides back, I'll just say your application for this program will go through our grants application portal. So if you have applied for NEFA grants in the past, this process may look a little bit familiar to you. That's okay. You can use the same account you've used before to log into the portal. If you haven't applied, that is also totally fine, and I'll show you how you can create a new account to log in. Thank you so much, Audrey. Great. So if we can go to the next slide, so this is where you will go. Sae mentioned if you want to start an application, you'll go to the Cultural Sustainability page on NEFA's website. And you'll see that handy dandy button that says APPLY NOW, and that's what you'll click, and when you click there, it will take you directly to our applications portal. So if we can head to the next page, that's great. This is what you'll see after you click that APPLY NOW button. So as I mentioned, if you have applied to previous NEFA grants and you have an account, you can log in here. Please remember, our system uses usernames and not emails. That trips a lot of people up. So if you're looking for your account, you can't remember your password and you go to the forgot my password page, just make sure you're using a username and not an email. If you don't remember what your username is, there's a link there that you can look it up, but if you're new to NEFA and you haven't applied to our grants before, you can go ahead and click New User? It will take you to a registration page where you can register. The only thing I'll say about that is don't let the need for an EIN stop you from applying. If your organization doesn't have one, you can enter zeros there if you don't have one or if you don't have it with you. That is okay just to get into the account and create the application. We do have, on the application itself, a field where you will need to have the EIN of yourself or your fiscal sponsor there, but it's not important for the account creation. Okay, we can move forward. Thank you. All right, so then once you are in, you should be directed straight to this application for Cultural Sustainability. I've just given you the very beginning here. You're welcome to log in and see what it looks like yourself, but I wanted to say quickly, make sure that you're saving the application early and often. We do not not have a portal that auto-saves. So I don't want you to lose any of your work. Just make sure you're saving. The best thing to do is just go in, literally put just a name on the application and then save so that you always have it to come back to and you know that you have a place to go back to instead of wondering if all your work went to the ether. Two, move through the application. There are four tabs. So I think Audrey said this earlier, but the application is sort of a lot of contact information for yourself and your fiscal sponsor if you have one, financial information and the narrative questions. So you'll see that divided through the tabs at the top. Make sure you progress through those, and for narrative questions, we just recommend that if you're drafting them, that you work on them in a separate document that you have for yourself. In case you go offline, anything happens, you don't want to be writing paragraphs and paragraphs and then press Save and your internet went out or something like that, so just make sure you're keeping that in a separate location, and then when you go to paste, just note those are text only, so you can't use any formatting. Review before you submit. There's a option when you go to submit to review all the information you've put in. Good to look it over, and you can save and come back to this as many times as you'd like before the deadline. So if we go forward, I'll show you what that looks like. When you want to go back after you started an application and you want to go resume it again, you go back to NEFA's website, you click the second button that says RESUME MY APPLICATION, and next slide, and that will take you to a dashboard within our portal. You'll have to log in again, but then you'll be directed to this dashboard, and on the dashboard, you should see very clearly the application that you started with the name that you made for it right there, and all you have to do is click Edit and you'll be brought right back in. And I believe that is it for me on the tech side. Thanks, all.

Sae: Thank you so much, Abby. Appreciate going over this. All right, for anyone interested in Cultural Sustainability or applicants, we have a couple of different resources and supports built for you. So we are offering FAQs, frequently asked questions, that provide insights that may be helpful to you, including information about what financial forms you need to upload, which are tax filings and what lines you should pull for your annual operating expenses. So all of that's in the FAQs. It'll be dropped into the chat. We'll also be posting a blog on grant writing tips from our NEFA staff. That'll be going online sometime next week and will be just tips as you write your applications. We'll also be offering one-on-one office hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with myself and Audrey. You can schedule those office hours via Calendly. That link will be put in the chat as well. And lastly, we'll be holding some open office hours or info sessions on Fridays that you can register for via Zoom, and that'll be for anyone who wants to pop in and ask a couple of questions. These will be open to anyone that is in that info session. So it won't be a one on one. Perfect. Next slide please. And lastly, we just want to let you know some contacts for any additional support you might need. So for eligibility, narrative or programmatic questions, please reach out to Audrey at aseraphin@nefa.org. That will be put into the chat. For any technical assistance or any ADA accommodation requests, please email me at syoo@nefa.org. For any questions about CreativeGround specifically, please email Natalya at creativeground@nefa.org. And lastly, for any technical issues with the application portal, please email tech@nefa.org. Great. Those are all of our slides. So we'll be moving into some Q&A.

Audrey: All right. Sae, I know we have quite a few questions accumulating in the chat and in the Q&A feature. I'm not sure where you want to begin, if you want to read me one that you think is good to start with.

Sae: Yeah, let's start with the questions in our Q&A box.

Audrey: Sweet.

Sae: So the first question is, what are the length limits of the narrative questions?

Audrey: That is an awesome question. Those character limits for the narrative questions are all between 3,600 and 2,000 characters. Specifically for question one, which is tell us about your organizations and any values that drive your work, that's 3,600 characters. The second, third and fourth required narrative questions are 2,000 characters each, and then that optional question that leaves space for you to provide any additional information about your organization's identity as an arts organization of color that you would like reviewers to know is 3,500 characters. And so you can actually see those limits and the questions themselves at the webpage I just dropped in the chat.

Sae: Perfect. Thank you. Our next question is, how do you define an arts organization of color?

Audrey: This is a great question as well, and this program is specifically designed for self-identifying arts organizations of color. So if that is how your group identifies, we welcome you to apply. We acknowledge that language that centers communities of color is ever evolving, but for the purposes of this program, we would consider an arts organization of color would meet at least two of three the following criteria, led by a person or persons of color, either artistically or administratively, predominantly in service of Black, Latin, Asian, Arab, indigenous Pacific Islander, and/or Caribbean communities or another community of color, or founded by and for a community of color. So I too will drop, this is just from the webpage, but I will drop that in the, oh, and Adrienne already did it, drop that in the chat. So those are some guideposts that we're using for arts organizations of color, but we also know that it is, you know, defining one's culture is not always an easy thing to do, particularly in a kind of vulnerable application space. So that is why we've given some extra space for that and made that question optional, but that is kind of how we are looking at arts organizations of color.

Sae: Great. Our next question is, does applying to or receiving another NEFA grant preclude an organization from applying to this grant opportunity or otherwise diminish chances for receiving this grant?

Audrey: Another great question. No, our previous grantees are more than welcome to apply. I will say, just yesterday, we announced our 13 ArtsHERE grantees, and so those folks who did not receive that grant will receive additional consideration and priority, but all previous grantees are eligible to apply for this opportunity.

Sae: Right. All right. The last question we have in our Q&A chat box is, what is it meant by work in New England and beyond? How is an application that focuses on communities in just one New England state considered?

Audrey: Great question. So cultural impact in New England and beyond really just suggests that work that is in your community and state can be extremely localized and focused on that community. The "and beyond" speaks to the larger impact of this program. The learning cohort will be regionally focused, but this is a national program, and so we are looking for folks that are looking to sort of expand their horizons, potentially grow the audiences of their work, including geographic reach, though your work does not need to be across multiple New England states to be considered or to be considered as a strong application.

Sae: Right. I have a question here, and I'll just read the first part for you, Audrey, first. Does NEFA have a commitment or plan to continue offering this grant opportunity for years?

Audrey: So at this time, this is a one-time grant opportunity. We are delighted that the Wallace Foundation has chose to partner with us to deliver this opportunity, and so for now, it's sort of a pilot one-time program, but we will be taking the learnings and hopefully incorporating it into future programming.

Sae: Great. All right, please keep throwing questions into the Q&A box. I'm just going to move into our chat because I know that we have a number of questions in there. Question is, can the SAM number, the UAI number be the number of our fiscal sponsor?

Audrey: Yes, and I believe it should in fact be the number of your fiscal sponsor if you have one.

Sae: Perfect. Is $20,000 annual budget too small for this program?

Audrey: No, it is not. We are considering folks with budgets as low as $0. We would just think, again, 'cause since sustainability is in the name of this program, folks with a budget size at anywhere under $100,000 can request up to $25,000. Though of course given that this is a one-time opportunity, we would just ask you to consider what amount of money, you know, you would like to receive through Cultural Sustainability and what would allow your organization to sort of reach that next level without potentially setting up a fiscal cliff or something that might make your work harder in the future. So no, it is not too small. I would just say request the amount of money that you need up to $25,000.

Sae: Perfect. I also just want to add on, the annual budget, we're referring to your annual operating expenses as seen in your tax filings. All right, our next question is, does one need to meet all the requirements and would they qualify if they met most of the criteria?

Audrey: A fair question. I do think, you know, one does need to meet all of the eligibility requirements, which, as a reminder, are having a budget under $500,000 annually as indicated by your annual operating expenses on your tax documents for the last two years, being an arts organization of color, self-identified. We gave some pillars and have some information on that in the chat, being located in New England, and having at least three years of programming experience. So those are all eligibility criteria you do need to meet. As for the funding criteria, obviously if you are, you know, more connected to the mission of the program, your cultural reach in New England and beyond, you know, the reviewer panelists will be evaluating alignment with that funding criteria, and so we would recommend, you know, speaking to it fully, and ideally you would meet all of that funding criteria as well. If you do not meet all the funding criteria, your application may not be considered as strongly reviewed as well. So that's a little bit more flexible, but the eligibility is pretty cut and dry.

Sae: Thank you, Audrey. We're having a question about, just a little clarifying question here. Please explain what is meant by pilot program in the narrative question, and I think this narrative question is referring to question four, what could the pilot program and cohort provide you with to support your work, unique expertise and knowledge?

Audrey: Yeah, so pilot program just refers to the fact that this is a one-time grant opportunity and that Wallace Foundation, which is the funder for this program, is also a research organization, and so we'll be interacting with cohorts both regionally and nationally to learn from them, see the impact of the funding, and hopefully plan for future funding programs. So pilot program just means that we will be developing this learning cohort, and directly, that question is definitely important because the pilot program being Cultural Sustainability in the learning cohort will be providing professional development, networking support, and other things as folks indicate in the narrative question. So we're really hoping to customize this learning cohort experience for grantees to the grantees themselves and their needs directly, especially as it comes to stewarding your Cultural Sustainability funding.

Sae: Perfect. Thank you. Our next question, is there a minimum number of years of financial data an organization is required to have for this grant?

Audrey: I guess technically yes. We are asking for two financial uploads. Ideally if you're a nonprofit, your 990s, and I know our FAQs, which are linked just under that question, go through the details for every kind of, you know, financial status. So there's no minimum, but we do need to see at least what your budget was in the last two years, and yeah, I think that's the answer to that. That is what we require to see in the application itself.

Sae: Perfect. Next question. I'm working with an organization who does not have a website. Is that required?

Audrey: I don't believe that it is required. It's definitely recommended. We also have had organizations use things like Facebook pages or other opportunities, like your CreativeGround page, for example, could also be a great example of your work, and so it's not required, but it is definitely recommended as that, and then your CreativeGround profile really serves as your predominant work sample for this application.

Sae: Great. A few more questions in our chat here, and I'll move into the Q&A box again. Are there grant opportunities for organizations who have less than three years of consistent programming but are hoping to grow in that direction?

Audrey: So, yes, NEFA offers grant opportunities for folks with varying levels of experience. I would recommend that you take a look at our website to learn more. We have a Find a Grant page, but for this particular opportunity, we are looking for those three years of programming as this is a substantial grant and we want to make sure that folks have a good history of programming and are prepared to continue to work with their audiences and communities to move that work forward.

Sae: Great. Could you tell us more about the preference for serving rural communities and if an inner ring suburban organization should still apply?

Audrey: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, yes. They absolutely at least should still apply. The prioritizing just indicates that we are, you know, looking for arts organizations from all kinds of regions. Frequently, you know, arts funding tends to go to organizations that are sort of more centrally located, and so we wanted to prioritize and make sure that folks from all across New England, including in rural communities, could access this grant and the amazing work that we hope it will help to produce. So that priority is in line with sort of NEFA's values and our belief and a belief and expectation that this grantee cohort, which we're anticipating will be about 20 organizations, really come from a variety of geographies, not just, you know, different cities but different towns and more rural areas that will help. Especially in our learning cohort, we're looking forward to seeing how those organizations can grow and learn from one another and acknowledging that people of color live everywhere, including in rural communities and not just in sort of urban and suburban settings.

Sae: Great. Did you say that you would be deprioritizing organizations that are part of the Powering Cultural Futures cohort?

Audrey: Yes, that is what I said. We are deprioritizing ArtsHERE and Powering Cultural Futures grantees as these are other sort of grant programs aimed at supporting arts organizations of color and grow organizations that serve underserved communities, and so we will be prioritizing organizations that have not had as substantial funding opportunities.

Sae: Great. We have a quick question here. Can we get access to the recording afterwards?

Audrey: Yes, it will be posted on the event page on our website and I believe on the Cultural Sustainability webpage itself probably in about a week. We are going to have captions embedded in the video for folks who are watching this at home later, but yes, there will be access to that, and you can check that out there probably in about a week.

Sae: Great. All right, moving into the Q&A box, if our art group applying has less than three years of practice but our fiscal sponsor has at least three years of experience and we as individual artists have three-plus years, does that make us still eligible?

Audrey: A nice and tricky question here. So we are looking for three years of arts programming experience. Now, that does not need to be aligned with when your, you know, arts organization either, you know, secured a fiscal sponsor or established your 501c3, but we do need to be able to see that the group has cohesively three years of programming experience. So yes, prior arts experience, prior arts experience also counts towards that three years, but especially on that CreativeGround profile, we're really going to be looking for the demonstration of the work you're doing as the group that is applying. So I would caution against utilizing years of experience that your fiscal sponsor did without you. So yeah, I know that there are definitely lots of nuances in this application, but it just goes back to, you know, can you show that you have three years of programming experience as this current group, whether it was, you know, formalized or not at the time.

Sae: Great. Thank you, Audrey. Next question, what is the grant pool total?

Audrey: Yeah, so we have about just over a million dollars to give away through this program, to distribute through this program, and so we are looking at having around 20 grantees. Of course this will depend upon grant award amounts and different organizational sizes in the cohort, but we're thinking it'll be around 20 grantees.

Sae: Great. Our next question, can an organization that has multiple programs that are non-art related submit the total budget of the organization, including the art portion, or should it create a budget for the organization budget that only focuses on the arts?

Audrey: Hi, Diego. Glad you're here. Good to chat with you again. So for this particular program, for Cultural Sustainability, you would want to have a budget that reflects the artistic programming work that you do. This is designed specifically for arts organizations of color. So we're looking at, you know, the budget. If your organization has, you know, if you're a fiscally sponsored organization, obviously your budget is going to be separate from, you know, your fiscal sponsor. I think in your particular case, you would have to upload, you know, probably tax documentation for the whole organization, but there is also space in the application to speak to kind of different financial situations, and so I would recommend using that box to sort of speak to the art-specific budget of your organization.

Sae: Great. Thank you. All right, next question. Can three years of programming be demonstrated but not in the financials? We had a fiscal sponsor and were under their umbrella before we incorporated and received 501c3 status.

Audrey: Yes, so you can still apply. You will just need to show in the upload documents, and again, I would recommend checking out the FAQ for specifics. So whatever your two most recent fiscal years are, you're just going to have to be able to show what your annual operating expenses were, and so whether that's with your, you know, first 990 or with documents from your fiscal sponsor, those, yes, you can still apply. You'll just need to upload from whatever is most recent and sort of settled for you.

Sae: Great. The last question I'm seeing in our box is, how many applications are we expecting to receive?

Audrey: Yeah, that is the $1.1 million question. So that, we, again, this is a new program, so we're not, you know, fully aware of what the volume will be. I could, you know, if I had to wager a guess, I would say somewhere between 75 and 150 applications. Again, 150 feels really high, but again, this is a really exciting opportunity, especially for NEFA, because we're engaging with folks that we have, you know, maybe not granted or worked with in the past. So we'll just kind of have to see 'cause, again, we are just at the very beginning of this journey. So it's hard to say. That is my best estimate though.

Sae: Great, and I'll just give another, like, 30 seconds for anyone who wants to submit any questions into our Q&A feature.

Audrey: Yes, and I just want to uplift what Adrienne put in the chat, which is that we are available to discuss specific questions around your eligibility. Email us, call us, set up a office hour, or attend one of our open information sessions on Friday mornings, which I believe start next week, yes. And so, you know, those absolutely understand. I'm trying to speak to sort of Richard's comment here in the chat as well, arts and culture, and we know especially for communities of color, arts and culture can have a broader cultural definition. And so if you feel that this is an opportunity that speaks to you regardless of, you know, whether you're a arts organization or you've seen yourself as an arts organization of color in the past, we would just encourage you again to get in touch if you have questions and to look at the eligibility and funding criteria, and if you feel that this speaks to you, definitely do. We would really love to see an application from you.

Sae: We just got a question in our Q&A. It's asking, if I'm affiliated with many organizations, do I need to choose one?

Audrey: Hi, Marissa. Great to have you here today. Yes, ya certainly do. This is in fact a grant for organizations and not necessarily individual artists. So I would recommend, you know, applying with the organization or business entity that you would like to utilize the Cultural Sustainability funds through. So whether that's nonprofit, for-profit, those selecting an organization that, you know I know we're all involved in multiple projects, but, you know, so I would recommend selecting the organization that, you know, you're looking to receive funding with.

Sae: All right, I'm not seeing any more questions here, so thank you so much, Audrey.

Audrey: Yes. Thanks, Sae. I always need your help on the hot seat, but yeah, I think we can, you know, draw our time together to a close today, but thank you all for attending. As a reminder, the deadline for this application will be on Thursday, November 21st. So get in touch with us early and often. Early is always better. So get in touch with us. Take a look at our application. Start your application on the NEFA website, and do check out any and all of our support opportunities if you are looking for further assistance on the Cultural Sustainability grant, and we look forward to seeing your applications come in soon. Awesome. Take care, all. Have a great rest of your day.