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In 2002 according to the Foundation Center, organizations in New York received 17000 grants totaling $2 billion across 172 foundations awarding $3 billion through 26000 grants. Nationwide, the top 50 foundations by giving solely for arts & culture in the US awarded $1 billion through 4848 grants. The top 50 foundations awarded $350 million through 961 grants solely for museums.
Based upon our experiences for mid-sized grants, we expect 40-80 hours to go into each grant opportunity of $20,000 to $200,000. Without expectation of winning every one, we believe grantseeking, as an operational activity, to return $400 hourly. Much of the taskwork is partitionable and scalable, and yields returns to knowledge and experience. The deep pool of available grants flattens and extends otherwise diminishing marginal returns.
Far from the model of patronage support for the arts, in the US where we have neither kings nor lords, foundation support makes art happen. Some of this rationale goes into our business plan. Does it make sense?
Based upon our experiences for mid-sized grants, we expect 40-80 hours to go into each grant opportunity of $20,000 to $200,000. Without expectation of winning every one, we believe grantseeking, as an operational activity, to return $400 hourly. Much of the taskwork is partitionable and scalable, and yields returns to knowledge and experience. The deep pool of available grants flattens and extends otherwise diminishing marginal returns.
Far from the model of patronage support for the arts, in the US where we have neither kings nor lords, foundation support makes art happen. Some of this rationale goes into our business plan. Does it make sense?
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Rochester
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Yes, i am out of my mind.
Fri, April 7, 2006 - 4:39 PMGrants present our only reliable source of initial funding. If to attain $1 million at $400 hourly requires 2500 hours—15 months full-time equivalent—it assumes we consistently beat upwards of several dozen other submissions. To achieve this level of performance against the odds at the national level, we need to develop our grantseeking capability, starting within our community with local opportunities, picking the low-hanging fruit.
Jumping into competition at the national level for large grants now against savvy, smart, and experienced full-time development staff of national museums and larger not-for-profits would otherwise be frustrating and futile. Too many rejections would burn out our volunteers and ourselves. As we gain experience, time and effort to prepare any given submission ought drop, and more importantly, ought improve its quality. Our ability to execute ones we win then confers credibility to win even larger grants without undue frustration. So it builds.
The $45,000 East End Garage Art Facade Competition is one such local opportunity, to which we have collaborated with sculptors and submitted OutdoorMuseum.com/jlam/Garage/Garage.pdf and appendices. I dropped a higher resolution photo illustration into our Tribe gallery too.
