Before you apply, ask….

1. Is the Creative Work Fund open to receiving new letters of inquiry?

The Creative Work Fund will announce deadlines for 2011 letters of inquiry in December 2010. Please do not submit a letter before that announcement is made.

2. Is this the right kind of grant for our project?

The Creative Work Fund awards grants that range in size from $10,000 to $40,000 for projects in which artists and nonprofit organizations are working closely together to create new art works. Any kind of nonprofit organization is eligible to apply to collaborate with an artist. The Fund takes the idea of a close working relationship between the artist and the organization very seriously and specifically wants to support the creation stage for a new art work.

3. I am an artist who wants to collaborate with a nonprofit organization to create a new work. Am I eligible for this grant?

The Fund has three criteria a lead artist must meet: geographic location, artistic background, and not being a recent Creative Work Fund recipient.

What’s a lead artist?: The lead artist is a person who meets the criteria outlined below, is playing a central role in creating the proposed art work, and who is not a regular staff member or board member of the applying nonprofit organization. Many projects feature more than one artist working in a team or ensemble, but only one of those artists should be identified as the “lead artist.”

Geography: The lead artist must live and have lived for the previous two years in one or more of the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, or Stanislaus County. In that two-year time period, it is acceptable to move among the eligible counties. The Fund also has considered applications from artists who have had temporary, short-term artist residencies outside of the 14 eligible areas but maintained a home base within them.

Artistic background: Each year, the Creative Work Fund invites artists in two broadly-defined artistic categories to apply. To be eligible for grants to be awarded in 2011, the project’s lead artist must be a literary artist or a traditional artist. The Creative Work Fund defines these categories as follows:

• Literary artists include those with experience writing poetry, spoken word poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. (Playwrights apply with performing artists.)

• Traditional artists create in art forms learned as part of the cultural life of a group of people whose members have a common ethnic heritage, language, religion, occupation, or region. These expressions are deeply rooted in and reflect a community’s shared standards of beauty, values, or life experiences. Often they are learned orally or by emulation. Traditional artists may excel as individual artists, work as a group, or work collectively. They may produce works in a variety of forms—oral traditions, performances, crafts, multi-disciplinary works, and others.

A literary or traditional arts Creative Work Fund project may culminate in any form, but it must feature a lead artist with a strong track record as a literary artist or a traditional artist.  (For example, a novelist might collaborate with a nonprofit film producer to create a film rather than a work for print publication.)

Concerning prior recipients: Lead artists who received Creative Work Fund grants in September 2008, September 2009, or July 2010 are not eligible to re-apply in 2011 as lead artists.

Lead artists who received Creative Work Fund grants prior to September 2008 must have completed their projects and submitted their final reports.

An artist who played a role in a previously-supported Creative Work Fund project but who was not the lead artist may apply as a lead artist for a 2011 request.

Concurrent applications: If a lead artist has a strong track record as a literary artist and as a traditional artist, that artist may submit one letter in each category for two different projects. Even if both proposals are wonderful, the Creative Work Fund will not invite full proposals from both of them.

4. I work with a nonprofit organization that wants to collaborate with an artist, are we eligible to apply for this grant?

The fund has three criteria for eligibility of nonprofit organizations: nonprofit status, geography, and role in a previously funded projects or concurrent applications. 

Nonprofit status: Any kind of 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization may apply (but not a private foundation). A recognized religious organization, even if it does not have 501 (c)(3) status, may apply. A public agency (such as a parks department, health department, or public school) may apply.

A nonprofit organization that clearly fills a charitable or educational purpose but does not yet have independent nonprofit status may apply with a nonprofit fiscal sponsor. Some public agencies (e.g. the Oakland Recreation and Parks Department) also have applied using fiscal sponsors.

Geography:The nonprofit organization must be based in one or more of the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, or Stanislaus County.

The Fund will consider applications from international, national, or statewide organizations that have local offices and staffs (paid or volunteer) in one or more of the 14 eligible counties.

Concerning prior recipients: Nonprofit organizations that received Creative Work Fund grants in September 2008, September 2009, or July 2010 are not eligible to re-apply in 2011.

Nonprofit organizations that received Creative Work Fund grants prior to September 2008 are eligible to apply if they have completed their projects and submitted final narrative and financial reports.

Fiscal sponsors may be part of applications at any time, even if they received a Creative Work Fund grant recently or if a report is outstanding.

Concurrent applications: If it is otherwise eligible, a nonprofit organization may submit one letter of inquiry in literary arts and one letter of inquiry in the traditional arts. They must be for different projects and, even if both were wonderful, the Creative Work Fund will not invite full proposals from both of them.

There is no limit on the number of applications that may be submitted using a particular fiscal sponsor.

5. Does the project fit within the timeframe for this funding opportunity?

For projects beginning the application process in 2011, deadlines and grant award dates will be announced in December 2010.  If a project already has begun by the time a grant would be awarded, the artist and the nonprofit organization should still be actively involved in the new work’s creation and collaborating with one another after fall 2011.

The Creative Work Fund prefers that projects receiving grants in 2011 be completed by late 2013, but projects of longer duration will be considered.

6. Can I see examples of previously funded projects?

Three places on the Creative Work Fund Website can introduce you to previously funded projects:

• On the home page, culminating events and publications are presented under “featured projects.”

• The “Funded Projects” section of the Creative Work Fund Website provides a comprehensive list of all 221 previously-funded projects—http://www. creativeworkfund.org/modern/funded.html#cwfrecipients.

• A selection of lead artists with detailed profiles of their projects may be found at http://wwww.creativeworkfund.org/modern/funded.html#leadartists.