blueprints

Tools for Framing | 225
Access State and Local Grants
Early in your planning stages, before you were even thinking about
events, you spoke with staffers at your state and local arts agencies. Such
agencies often work on long schedules—for example, Utah Arts Council
grant applications for programs beginning after July 1 are actually due the
previous fall, so Utah organizations have to submit grants in September or
October for programs that begin in September or October of the following
year. Thus, if you plan to pay your poets or have any other significant
expenses, such as rentals, travel, or staff salaries, you need to begin planning
your grant proposals at least a year and maybe as long as fourteen months
out from your first event.
Begin by noting the typical deadlines of all your granting organizations
and make a calendar, including deadlines and a grant-writing schedule for
each grant you plan to apply for, so deadlines don’t slip by you. Note that a
few agencies have two deadlines: an early one for a draft proposal and a final
deadline a few weeks later. The early deadline is as serious as the later one
because going through the draft process is usually a requirement for submitting
the final grant. Feedback from the agency gives you an opportunity
to strengthen your proposal, so use the early deadline as an opportunity.
In addition, if your program lives within an institution like a college,
university, or museum, you may need to get permission and signatures from
one or more internal offices, each with its own requirements. Find out
which offices must sign off in what order, what additional forms they
require you to fill out, and what lead time each requires to review and sign
the grant proposal before it can go to the next office. When you add up all
the days and count back from the official deadline, you have your own
“real” deadline—the day the grant and the forms that accompany it must
actually be completed. This could be a month before an agency’s official
deadline, so be prepared. Then turn your calendar back to at least a month
before that “real” deadline and make a note to start your proposal on that
day. Starting early will give you a chance to check with your partners about
their participation and get feedback on your proposal, both from experienced
friends and possibly from grant officers at agencies that don’t build
review into their processes. It will also give you time to ask questions if
you’re confused by the directions, which can be perplexing even to experienced
grant writers.
Before starting each grant application, reread the application guidelines
and the mission statement of the organization in question. In addition, check