President's report
By Ruby Lerner, December 1999

Grants Process Update

I'm very proud to present to you the seventy-five projects totaling $563,700 recommended by our panelists. The panel process went smoothly; panelists were quite generous; and you will see a thrilling roster of diverse artists and projects. Panelists were asked to provide helpful feedback to projects they did not wish to fund, and those not selected for funding will be able to call for specific comments and suggestions.

As you may recall, we received about 1,810 proposals. Each proposal was

read by two outside evaluators and the appropriate program staff. We asked for additional materials from 220 artists, including work samples, and project and budget detail. These projects were reviewed by peer panels which met in early November. Although our goal was to fund 60 projects, the work was so strong this round that panels decided to support 75 projects.

It’s difficult to convey our extraordinary enthusiasm about the artists and projects we are funding. It’s a roster filled with innovation and creativity. There are a few mature artists on the list and a few quite young artists, with the majority in the early to mid-career category, which is exactly what we had hoped to achieve. There are projects that we think will have resonance within the artistic community, and there are projects that could have broader cultural impact. There are artists working at the juncture of art and science, artists working with emerging technologies, some who are exploring issues of identity, several who are looking at changing urban landscapes, some that are pure visual explorations, and some looking at gay and lesbian issues, to name just a few of the recurring ideas represented by the list.

There is also virtual gender parity (40 men, 35 women) and there is significant representation of artists of color (36%). This was one of our major goals for our first year. We have 20 media projects, 20 visual arts projects, 23 performing arts projects and 12 projects in the emerging fields category. Sixteen states plus the District of Columbia are represented on the roster.

We want to do better than this geographically, and we have developed a focused approach to outreach to strengthen the geographic representation for the future.

Not surprisingly, we learned quite a lot this year. We feel that there were many strong aspects to our process--utilizing outside evaluators to help us review preliminary proposals, for example--and certainly, bringing in peer panels to make final recommendations, but each step of the process was too hurried, and we were inadequately staffed and structured for the volume of proposals we received. These are areas that are being addressed in next year's plan.

We are also working to make the process as electronic as possible. We hadn't visualized how clerical the grantmaking process is and while certain things can't really be changed, we do think that we may be able to streamline the process.

Our outreach plan for next year will focus specifically on the geographic areas where we already have financial support. These include the Southeast, California, Hawaii, and Minnesota. We also plan to do more targeted outreach with the Native American community. We don't feel we need to do more outreach in New York City, the other area in which we have specific support. Although we will also work on our outreach efforts more generally, we think that by focusing specifically on particular geographic areas, constituencies or disciplines each year, we can acquire a depth of information we might not otherwise achieve.

As an experiment this year, we decided to look at preliminary proposals without looking at work samples. Work samples were requested for projects that moved on to the panel round. This was in part a logistical decision, but more importantly, as we stated in our guidelines, we feel that we need to work with artists who are already at a certain level of articulation about their work, especially in our first few years. Given the strength of the grantee roster, I feel that this decision was mostly justified. I say "mostly" because every grant process misses some extraordinary projects and people, and this is our biggest fear about not looking at work samples in the first round. We are going to try this one more year before making a final decision.

However, we will be making significant changes in the evaluation process. All proposals will still be read by two outside evaluators, but we will now look for at least one of those evaluators to be someone who is actually familiar with the artist's work. This means working with a much broader pool of evaluators from all over the country, and it will likely be much more labor intensive. However,I see this as something that will strengthen us institutionally in the long run.

In order to accomplish all our goals with regard to the grants process for next year--working to make the process less clerical, and focusing on outreach to broaden both the applicant pool and the evaluator pool, we will open for submissions next fall and we will consider applications in two of our four discipline areas, with the other two disciplines being the focus in 2001. (We haven't decided on the disciplines yet; we're going to try to coordinate with New York Foundation for the Arts.)

In order to retain maximum flexibility, we will keep a small pool of discretionary funding available for project opportunities that might fall outside those two disciplines.

Immediately following this board meeting artists will be notified. In late January we will get contracts out and will issue checks for 80% of the award upon receipt of the signed contract.

The Creative Capital Contract

As one of the key ideas behind Creative Capital is the goal to create a revolving fund, we have spent the better part of the year working with our lawyer, Sue Bodine, to come up with a contract that embodies this principle without being onerous to the artist--or to us--as we have neither the ability nor the desire to become a collection agency. We do, however,expect to participate financially if any of our projects succeed in a significant way, and we expect to participate in perpetuity.

We reviewed contracts from a number of our colleague organizations, but felt they were either more complex or more onerous than what we hoped to set up.

Here's the basic concept:

1) As part of the project development plan, we will work with artists to ensure that a true project budget has been created. (Often artists create budgets in which they and their collaborators are subsidizing the process of creation.) This final budget number will be mutually agreed upon by the artist and us and will be the starting point for the financial arrangement.

2) Any revenue that comes in up to that final budget number goes to the project. We know that many of the projects we support will not get past this point financially.

3) If a project generates income above that budget number, Creative Capital would be entitled to receive the percentage of the budget that we contributed--up to recoupment of the total amount of the grant. After the grant amount has been recouped, our portion will be halved for all future receipts from the project.

I feel very good about this as a starting point, as it is fair and proportional. Of course, this will also be an experiment, and I suspect it make take us a few years to fine tune a final formula.

The Next Steps for Funded Projects

Early next spring we will assign consultants to funded projects to assist artists with project plan development. Through this process we will determine which projects will need additional financial resources and identify potential partners. Because we are interested in artists’ long term sustainability, we will ask artists if there are specific skills they would like to acquire, and if they would like us to try to put them in touch with particular individuals or institutions. We will also be able to see where there might be overlapping needs/desires. We will hope to have all the individual plans finished by June or July. This will constitute the first phase of the technical assistance process.

We are open to providing additional funding to already funded artists, and we will make this additional funding available to our projects in early September.

In the meantime, we will create a Special Opportunities Fund so that artists may apply for small amounts of matching funds to attend presentations of their work, or to participate in professional conferences or seminars, etc. We will keep this fund available on a "rapid response" basis.

Creative Capital Artists' Gathering

One of the core ideas most important to me is the opportunity we have to foster a sense of community among Creative Capital artists. In my experience, artists are often the best resources to each other, if you can just get them in the same place at the same time. I'm pleased to announce that we have secured Skowhegan in Maine in mid-August for a 4-day retreat. All funded artists will be invited and we will bring in additional resource people in each of our discipline areas. This will be an opportunity for artists to meet each other, to see work, to brainstorm with colleagues and resource people, and to participate in formal workshops and seminars.

Internet Activity

In addition to enhancing our online capabilities on the grantmaking front, we have ambitious plans to promote Creative Capital projects online, as well as creating a space where our artists can have access to us and to each other. After the first of the year, we will put up information about the projects and artists we're supporting, but within the year we plan to have the site filled with visual material about the projects, exhibition/presentation schedules, and space for artists to keep project diaries, if they so choose. Down the road, we will investigate the possibility of becoming an e-commerce site for Creative Capital artists and will consider an online publication as well.

Criteria for Evaluation

I've been thinking about this quite a bit, since I think many of us agree that it is dangerous for Creative Capital's success to only be measured by whether our projects actually return money to the fund. As we evolve, I think it will be important to think about publicly articulating the idea of multiple outcomes. Here are some of the areas I think it might be appropriate for us to consider:

1. Artistic impact of the work

2. Cultural impact of the work

3. Financial impact on the artist

4. Financial impact on Creative Capital

In addition, I think we need to ask ourselves if we're feeding useful information back to the artistic community and to the philanthropic community.

Summary

In a way, now the adventure begins! We're off to an incredibly exciting start,and I'm sure our learning curve will be as steep next year as it has been this year. We could not be working with a more amazing group of artists and projects. I know that they will be teaching us a lot.

On behalf of the entire staff, thank you all for your generosity and incredible support of our efforts this year.