(Stand out from the crowd – how can you make your application count?)
A week or so ago the brilliant Theatre Bristol played host to Philip Butterworth from Arts Council South West, who guided a group of freelance artists and companies through some top tips regarding Project Grants and the newer Developing Your Creative Practice fund, which has just announced its first round recipients.
Before your ears go deaf to the funding jargon, know this – Developing Your Creative Practice is the SIMPLEST EVER route ACE has made available for INDIVIDUAL artists to apply for funding.
You don’t need to have match funding, you don’t need to show any public benefit. The money is for YOU to make a vital step-change in your career. As Philip said quite bluntly – BE SELFISH – this can be all about you.
The links in the intro above will take you through to ACE’s advice guide booklets. The Project Grants link is for projects requesting less than £15K – perhaps more likely if you’re a writer and/or first-time applicant.
Although it takes a while to read them, they are invaluable and – if followed closely – do tell you most of the things you need to know about the basics of writing an application.
So why the blog?
Much of what was shared in the workshop covered similar ground, but what many of us were hungry for was the opportunity to ask questions.
We wanted to better understand some of the nuances at the very top of the decision-making chain.
We wanted to discover where we might create more detail or a stronger emphasis in future applications, to ensure we had a strong chance of competing for funds.
Both funds are very competitive – 80% of applications are eligible in Project Grants, for example, but only 40% are given – so knowing what might give you the extra edge is hugely advantageous. It’s never a guarantee of funding, but it means you might just have an added something that ACE are looking for.
This blog is by no means comprehensive as an advice guide – it’s an extension of the headlines I was live-tweeting from the workshop itself.
From previous experience however, the following combination has worked:
- ACE’s published guides used closely alongside the writing of the application
- A mentor or previous successful applicant who can offer feedback
- ACE’s advisors on the phone, who know the forms and process inside out
- Somebody outside your work who can read the application to check for clarity
- A co-writer: somebody from within your creative team to share drafts / ideas
I won’t go into the wormhole that is ACE’s online application portal of Grantium now – suffice to say I would just recommend writing everything OFFLINE until you’re sure it’s ready.
Then use an online character-counter (not Word’s automatic one) to check your character limits and not get frustrated when you’re cutting and pasting to Grantium.
Also you can make use of Plymouth artist Rachel Dobbs’ brilliant ‘Cheat Sheet’ for getting your head around it all – particularly good for neurodiverse applicants attempting to manage the funding platform, and recently updated too (March 2018).
Right – on with the workshop, and why those particular headlines I was tweeting out grabbed me. First off:
PROJECT GRANTS
TWEET 1: If you’re applying for UNDER £15K via @ace_national Project Grants, really focus on the Artistic Quality and Public Engagement: Finance and Management still need to be solid, but weight and focus is often put on the former #ACEseminar #TrinityCentreBristol @theatrebristol
The first time I was applying for funding, I had a total panic about finance and management: I was a solo artist applying simply for time to write – how on earth could I talk fluently about ‘managing’ income when all I wanted was a weekly wage? I didn’t have a finance team – it was just me.
Whilst the advice I got was solid – talk about how you’ve calculated fees, how they compare to industry minimum, any previous experience of managing finances solo (being freelance alone gave some evidence) – I still worried about it.
But the advice in the workshop was clear:
If there are several projects lined up side by side vying for funding, the weight will be on the quality of the artistic ideas, and how far they engage the public (now and/or further down the line) with artistic excellence.
TWEET 2: Don’t ‘corkscrew in’ perceived Public Engagement benefits or ‘buzzword bingo’ your Project Grant applications – be genuine about where your project might meet wider ACE values and ambitions, and really ground those in your activity with clear evidence #ACEseminar @theatrebristol
I always overwrite, and I always write too technically and academically, which I think adds my projects intelligence and sophistication.
It doesn’t. Fortunately, I have some helpful co-writers who get me to WRITE MORE CLEARLY.
One of Philip’s main bits of general advice was:
Remember human beings will be assessing your application. They want to be excited by your ideas, so show your excitement, your passion and your desire in the way you write.
In relation to the tweet above, there’s a temptation to ‘upsell’ your public engagement with marketing speak to the point where you’re clutching at straws: this can also cloud the artistic and engagement ideas by over-explaining them.
Be clear. Be precise. Actions speak louder than words.
What are you doing, why are you doing it, who is it for, why is that important? It’s not a PhD after all. Also, check in with what ACE’s wider values and ambitions are.
ACE doesn’t owe you a living – they’re funded to meet their own targets, through funding you. How is your artistic activity helping that happen?
TWEET 3: R+D question: how to show Public Benefit when developing work? Maybe via sharing, rehearsed reading – but also, say @ace_southwest, via the activity’s realistic FUTURE long-term benefit, which can be argued via your track record and project context #ACEseminar @theatrebristol
As mentioned above, my first (and successful) application was time for me to sit in a room for seven weeks and write a new play. Public benefit? Um…
There were three things I planned for the activity that were of arguable direct public benefit:
1. Holding a public rehearsed reading via a recognised venue and scratch programme (which actually didn’t happen – the play didn’t work out)
2. A workshop at the end of it for another group of writers, to pass on whatever I’d learned from the writing process
3. A series of ten blogs tracking the artistic journey and picking out tips and advice.
Future benefit was argued in the application as the future audience of a production, future likely employment of actors, track record of production and relationships with venues, the fact that with my other hats I teach and work with other writers – they too could be impacted by the learning taking place, and two future workshops were agreed on that basis (though not costed and covered by this particular grant).
Where might the activity directly or indirectly have a future public benefit? How can you give evidence for this? What’s the wider context of your work or artistic practice?
TWEET 4: What if we don’t have a ‘track record’ for activity – the reason being it’s new, innovative, developing our ideas? The @ace_southwest response is to apply anyway but really draw on other experience, and your partners’ management skills and experience #ACEseminar @theatrebristol
There are two things that leap out here:
Using the wider context of your work (or life) to give assurance, lessen risk, show awareness of potential problems and challenges.
Part of being creative is not just having artistic ideas: it’s about adapting your experience to given circumstances and recognising your transferable skills.
Had I ever managed an arts project budget of more than few hundred quid before? No. But had I managed my precarious freelance income for six years? Yes.
Had I ever done a process quite like this one before? No, that’s why I did it, and I showed I was aware of the risks. Why was that? Because of those other similar projects over there that I did once before…
You’re a natural adaptive force as a creative individual or team. Be strategic with it!
Partners’ skills and experience:
Get partners, get partners, get partners. A venue. An organisation. A space. A festival or known audience. A mentor. Named artistic collaborators, if you want or have some who’ll be involved.
They might not be giving you anything but a desk space or their time in-kind (which you should always cost out in your budget either way) but if you can prove people are coming along with you, it lessens the risk and shows others believe in you taking this chance.
Find appropriate partners and articulate your ideas to them in a way that excites them enough to invest support.
Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP)
DYCP allows individual artists to apply for anything from between £2,000 to £10,000. The first round’s recipients have just been announced.
TWEET 5: Only 10% of new Developing Your Creative Practice @ace_national applications successful in first round: advice at Trinity Centre ACE Seminar today is HOLD ON until you have a project that’s a best fit – look at what’s been successful to date as well #ACEseminar #TrinityCentre
The above is good advice, but to unpick the depressingly low statistics for a second – ACE expects that percentage to rise over the next three or four rounds.
This is because people start to learn what gets through, how the assessment works, what sort of projects are getting backing. The exact same thing happened with a previous stream of funding for developing practice internationally – 10% of applicants got awards in the first round, and then it levelled out later to 40% just as it is with Project Grants. ACE imagines the same happening with DYCP as it moves forwards.
Take a look at the successful applicants. Now. Do it! Then you’ll immediately be in a stronger position to articulate why you’re applying.
TWEET 6: With Developing Your Creative Practice funding from @ace_national it REALLY is about YOU – not public benefit – it’s about the step-change you require in your artform to experiment, work with new collaborators, build networks – but why NOW for YOU? #ACEseminar @theatrebristol
Philip’s key remark was that it seemed like dozens of applicants simply hadn’t believed that they need not show ANY public benefit in their activity.
Old habits die hard – the public benefit is such a corner stone of Project Grants – and it turned out that many of the DYCP applications would have been more competitive in the Project Grant strand!
It really is about why you need time now to explore your practice and take riskes – why you need to take this time in your artistic life to make it all about you.
This might be about experimenting with new collaborators – leaders in a field that you want to break into.
This might be more general thinking about where you want to be in one, two or three years’ time with your practice and how the fund could kick-start that vital change for you.
Why now, what now, why me – how can I become a stronger artist and increase my creative capacities in the future?
TWEET 7: DYCP can be followed-on later with a Project Grant, to fully create any product that’s come out of it: but this ISN’T a requirement. There’s no rulebook on what DYCP pays for – it doesn’t have to be a ‘product’ – it can just be investment in YOUR TIME #ACEseminar @theatrebristol
Just as there need not be any public engagement, there need not be any ‘product’ by the time the project activity is over.
This doesn’t mean there’s no evidence of what you’ve achieved – you will still have to evaluate the effectiveness of the project activity – but it doesn’t have to conclude with a final, public-facing, finished thing.
It really can be R+D time for learning, observation and creative capacity-building alone.
That’s a pretty positive note to finish on I think.
For a long time artists have been bemoaning the conundrum with ACE of wanting to develop themselves or their work, but having to show public benefit in doing so.
DYCP is the answer to this, and whilst it will take a few rounds or more to really show its impact and effectiveness, why not get your hat in the ring early? You can apply up to twice in one year.
Happy funding-application-writing everyone!
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