Grant Writing For Artists ... Is It Even Worth It or Not?

Grant writing for artists is similar yet different from other aspects of applying for grant funding. In this video, I share some information about being an artist and writing grants from this perspective. This lays the groundwork for how to pursue it.

Hey, my friend Rodney Walker here and just doing a little biking and I decided to take a break and talk to you about this whole thing about Grant writing for artists. Now, I know you may be an artist right now, and I don't know what kind of artist you are, even as you kind of hear in the background. I have somebody playing, and in my mind, that person is an artist as well. 

But in this particular video, I'm going to be sharing with you some information about being an artist and writing grants as an artist. The first thing I want to kind of address in our time is "Is it worth it? Should you be going at the grants and doing grant writing for artists? Is it worth your time?" And secondly, if so, then "What are some of the best ways to kind of go about doing it?" So that's what going to be sharing with you briefly in this video. I may make some other videos to help you. I have a lot of other videos that you can check out later on. 

Is It Worth It?

But for now, let me just kind of address this issue. Is it worth it? First of all, as an artist, there are a number of needs that you have and a number of ways that you can possibly apply for some grants that may be applicable for you. For instance, you have supplies that you need, right? The paint supplies, the canvases, things for your sculptures. Well, that's one need. And there are foundations or funders that are committed to helping you. So in one end, you have an opportunity to have somebody to fund give money to which you're about to help you to do a better job. Do you think you know what I mean?

So what I'm simply saying is that they can come in, bring some funding your way that can alleviate you having to pay for it yourself. Now, there are some other things that funders will tend to find. Funders tend to fund things such as sometimes sabbaticals. Also, they will do great residencies for artists. So maybe you're an artist that will come in and work with their organization for a period of time within six months, three months, a year, and they will compensate you while you do a residency there at their physical location.

And they may have you doing some other things. For instance, they may have it set where you may take some classes on art or do some other things. But again, this is funding that helps you to allow yourself to be able to express yourself and the creativity that you have. 

Creatively Expressing Yourself

Now, I didn't make mention, I'm an artist as well. But I went to undergrad, my art I did an art degree, a B.A. and an art from the University of Texas. So I get to when we talk about this whole artistic thing and creativity that you want to express. Now, let's look at grant write. Let's assume that. Yes, you know that you for sure want to do this online professional grant writing thing. What are some things that you should be thinking about? Well, here's my brief quick suggestions for you. 

First, you want to make sure that you gain a good understanding of the whole process. The process of writing a grant isn't rocket science. It isn't something that's super, super complex. But you do want to have an understanding of how to do it. And let me say this when I say understanding how to do it, the general idea of being able to write a grant is pretty consistent across the board.

So if you take in any type of grant writing class, it can help you to have an understanding. The difference is when you're doing online grant writing certification as an artist, it's just a little different in that what it's going to be doing. You're going to be actually writing for yourself in most cases, unless you're doing it on behalf of an organization. Most of you want to be doing it as individuals. And so there's a smaller pool of funds that will fund individual artists.

They do exist. So two things we want to do. We want to find what is that go to resource that you can go to find out about all the opportunities that exist. I'll tell you real quickly, in short, the number one tool that most people go-to for this is something called the Foundation Online Directory. And in that directory, it provides you all those opportunities and provides it to you in such a way where you can break down and look at it by state and things of that nature to see, "Hey, which funders are given in my state?" You can even break it down to city. You can even break it down to a region. So we want to make sure that we find what are the funding opportunities. 

And then secondly, you want to know how to tell your story because a part of what you're doing here is really marketing. Okay? You're really marketing, but you're telling your story from A to Z about what you're proposing to do if they give you a grant. Okay?

The Artist's Guide To Grant Writing

Now time will permit me to go into much greater detail here right now, but I'm going to be doing some other videos to address grant writing for those of you that are artists, because what we want to do is you want to learn this because what how does your life change this year if you are able to write one, two, three, four or five grants and let's say you get three of them funded for, what, five or ten thousand dollars? Does that make a difference in your life? Well, if it does, then, my friend, you want to learn this and think about the business side of it. 

Now, let me say this. I know as an artist, sometimes it's easy to want to concentrate just on the creative side. But if you'll take some time to invest in learning this skill, I believe that it will help you to have more freedom to be able to do more on the creative side, because you will have the resources that you need that will allow you to be able to do more of what you want to do so that we can see that work that you have. What is this painting? Sculptures? Modern art? Whatever it is. Okay? 

Now I'm going to be putting some of the videos here later on for you to help you. And what I want to encourage you to do is if you found any of this helpful, just subscribe. I have a ton of other videos that go into greater detail about this. We're going to be looking more specifically, though, at Grant writing to help you as an artist. And if you are interested in learning about grant writing in general, I want to invite you to go over right now to look for a link that says coaching.

I have a program designed to help right now so that this won't be as fuzzy. And what I'm going to encourage you to do, whether it's my program or some other program, is to invest in some program to learn as quickly. And then once you learn it quickly, then to start nurturing relationships with funders. Okay? The name of the game is relationships. Okay? Not just writing the grant, but developing the relationships that are going to help you to get funded. And if you'll do that, my friend, guess what? I believe that you'll get funded and I'm looking forward to helping you to do so. 

So until we talk again, remember, be brave. I want you to be bold and be brilliant. Take charge.


Rodney Walker is today’s leading expert in Grant Development Systems™ and President of Grant Central USA - Grant Writers Association. Learn more about his online grant writing courses today.

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