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Artist
Services Update
In its first year Creative Capital funded 75 artists. Initial awards totaled $563,700, with grants ranging from $3,200 to $20,000, and the average grant at $7,500. The stated mission of Creative Capital directs us to stay involved with artists and their projects beyond the initial financial award. Each newly funded artist has a formal meeting with our staff. This strategy session with Creative Capital staff begins the project planning process. Before the end of 2000, we will have met individually with every funded artist. Most meetings have been in person; a few have been by phone. The goal of the meeting is to encourage artists to think about the desired impact of the project, as well as how the project fits into the anticipated trajectory of their work life over the next few years. We determine if there are skills the artist is interested in acquiring during the time she/he will be working with us or if there are particular professional contacts that she/he would like to make. We also discuss how supplemental financial support might help artists to achieve their strategic goals. We allocated $375,000 in supplemental support, or $5,000 per project, for our first 75 grantees. While each artist ultimately determines how she/he will use supplemental support, several distinct categories of usage have emerged. Of the $165,000 requested to date by 33 artists.
Several artists used this support for more than one of these purposes. In addition to the $5,000 of supplemental support reserved for each project, we have created a Special Opportunities Fund to make additional small amounts of support available to our funded artists. In January 2001 we will make a second round of funding available to a small number of currently funded projects. The grants will be competitive — an outside panel will be brought in to help staff make these awards — and will generally be larger (in the $15-20,000 range) and fewer (10 to 13) than those awarded in the initial round. The primary criterion for selection will be the project's potential for impact, either within the arts community or in the broader culture. In some respects, the relatively small amount of financial support that we can offer is often not the most compelling feature of the Creative Capital program to the artists we have funded thus far. For example, we have helped to connect approximately 26 of our artists with various consultants and advisors throughout the year. Many have met with our former development consultant, Nancy Scerbo, who has assisted them with both planning and fundraising. Our knowledgeable program staff also makes studio visits, attends work-in-progress performances and screenings and other public presentations of funded artists' work, and if appropriate, offers feedback to the artist. Additionally, we send out "opportunities emails" periodically to make funded artists aware of funding or exhibition opportunities. The content of the website has expanded dramatically over the past year and the artists' projects section of the Creative Capital website, currently in development, will contain information about each project, plus visual images and links to an artist’s own site, if applicable. Our website is already beginning to be a source of useful information for artists we have funded, and even for those we have not yet funded. Our newly designed project database will make it possible for us to track each project's development and to chronicle our relationship with each project in great detail. However, the most significant benefit of being a Creative Capital grantee was probably our Artists Retreat at the Skowhegan (Maine) School of Painting and Sculpture, which proved to be the key event of the year for the 41 artists (representing 39 projects) who attended. In addition to project presentations given by each artist, there were six formal skills/information-building workshops, plus opportunities to consult with the more than 20 resource consultants who also attended the gathering. Many relationships, both among the artists and between artists and the consultants, have continued to develop. A tangible outgrowth of the Strategic Planning workshop held at the retreat has been the establishment of a formal Mentor Program, led by consultant Colleen Keegan of Keegan Fowler Companies. Although this program is at a very early stage, 18 of our artists are already participating. Once artists create clearly defined objectives, they are placed with a mentor who advises them in the realization of those objectives over a 6-to -12 month period. The Skowhegan retreat also made us aware that we needed to offer a financial planning workshop for our grantees. This workshop was held at our office in November and was attended by seven artists. Although this is only our first year and many of the projects we have funded are still in early stages of development (about 35 projects remain in the development or research phase, 30 are in progress, and about 10 are complete), there has been a very high level of activity. Perhaps most significantly, some of our efforts have already resulted in concrete opportunities for funded artists. Not surprisingly, it also appears that the artists who are the most engaged with us appear to be receiving the greatest benefits from their experience as a Creative Capital grantee. Here are some highlights:
ISSUES There are a number of challenging issues we will be considering as we move forward into next year. It will be important to address these issues sooner rather than later, as we will be adding about 50 new projects to the roster in mid-2001. These issues are as follows: 1) The retreat taught us a lot about efficiency, and we will be making some important changes next year as a result: First, the retreat will become the first activity in the program cycle for new grantees. (This year it occurred mid-cycle.) This will allow artists to meet each other very early in the process, see each other's work, participate in three-to-four core informational workshops (Strategic Planning, Fundraising, Marketing and Public Relations), and establish relationships with important resource people from the field. Second, following the retreat we will meet with artists in small groups, rather than individually, as we have found one-on-one staff consultations to be extremely time and labor intensive, particularly given that so much basic information has to be repeated at each meeting. We believe that small group meetings will enable us to share basic information more efficiently, while allowing artists to take advantage of each other’s knowledge. After each small group meeting, we will follow up with individual artists, in person or by phone, as needed. 2) Thanks to the expertise of Colleen Keegan, the recently established Mentor Program could prove to be an invaluable resource to our artists. But there are a number of unknowns at this time. What will it take for an artist to be "successful" in this program? What preparation or training will the mentors need? Will we be able to identify a mentor for every artist who wants one? What will it take in terms of staff and financial resources to adequately develop this program? 3) As a greater number of the funded projects come to fruition, we will be expected to more clearly articulate our own criteria for success. We have already been thinking about multiple criteria, but perhaps a good starting point will be to honestly determine whether artists who receive Creative Capital support and services are better able to sustain themselves at the end of the grant process than they were at the beginning, whether through the development of specific skills, or career-building opportunities afforded them as a result of the grant, or both. This will be a tough measure, but not inappropriate for an entity with our stated goals. 4) Also important will be a clearer articulation of the criteria by which we determine when a project is completed: what does "completed" mean? As we are committed to maximizing the impact of each funded project, this might entail some level of involvement long after a project's public debut: what is an appropriate level of involvement? Are there non-monetary ways to remain involved, such as continuing to promote the project and artist on our website, or should small amounts of financial support continue to be available during the life of a completed project? If so, for how long? 5) We need to monitor our effectiveness with regard to serving artists who do not live in the New York area. Many out-of-town artists come to New York at least once a year, so we have actually been able to meet with a number of out-of-town grantees in person at our office. We have also been able to check in with several grantees as we have traveled. As we had a considerable number of California grantees, we made a special trip there last summer to meet with them in person. This is a noble start, and to my knowledge, there have not been any complaints, but it is important that all funded artists have the same access to the staff that New York artists feel they have. I believe that we need to address this proactively, in a conscientious and considered way, and to do so now. 6) Finally, just as we are asking artists to think entrepreneurially, we need to think entrepreneurially as an organization. We will be asking ourselves: Are we developing concrete tools, procedures or programs that may be of value to constituencies other than our grantees? If so, what is their value? To whom? How might we further develop them to benefit a larger community? Do they provide earned income possibilities for us? CONCLUSION Clearly, these are a few of the important areas that are in need of further development and clarification. But there can be no doubt that we have had a remarkably productive second year and that our experiment moves into its third year with vigor. While we are rightly concerned with measurable objectives, it is also important to remember that an important part of our job is to create a climate in which creativity can flourish. As animator Joanna Priestley wrote us: "You have reminded me that it is important to keep working, keep pushing the edges, keep trying to go beyond what I know and where I am comfortable." Ruby
Lerner, President |
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