Apply For A Grant

Eligibility

Creative Work Fund projects feature one or more artists collaborating with nonprofit 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organizations.  The Fund encourages the artists and organizations to “come together” for the sake of this collaboration:  An artist should not submit a request to collaborate with an organization if he or she serves on its staff or board of directors.

The Fund encourages artists to collaborate with nonprofit organizations of all kinds. 

The principal collaborating artists must live in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, or Stanislaus County and have lived there for at least two years.  Collaborating organizations also must be based in one of the 12 counties.

In fall 2008, interested media and traditional artists and collaborating organizations are invited to submit three-page letters of inquiry.  A media or traditional arts project may culminate in any form, but it must feature a lead artist with a strong track record as a media artist or a traditional artist.  The Creative Work Fund defines these eligible artists as:

• Media artists create works for film, video, video or sound installations, radio, or computer-based media

• 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.

In either category, artists and organizations should plan projects and prepare and sign letters of inquiry together.  If project partners plan to use a fiscal sponsor, that sponsor also should review and sign the letter.

Artists and organizations may submit one proposal per category per deadline and may receive no more than one Creative Work Fund grant every three years.  (For fall 2008, artists and organizations that received Creative Work Fund grants in June 2007 or September 2008 are ineligible.)

Past Creative Work Fund grant recipients who are reapplying also must have finished their projects and completed approved final reports before submitting new letters of inquiry.

The Fund Seeks:

• Projects in which the creation of an artwork is central

• Projects in which the artist functions primarily as an artist, not as a teacher, an art therapist, or in another capacity

• Projects in which an active, authentic working partnership between the artist or artists and the organization is central to the work’s development

• Projects that engage the organization’s constituents in the artist’s work

• Projects that draw upon artists’ creativity and problem-solving abilities

• Projects through which the making of art can strengthen a community, draw attention to an important issue, or engage audiences in new ways

• Projects that challenge artistic imagination and organizational thinking

• Projects that will be presented in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, or Stanislaus County

• Projects that designate at least two-thirds of the grant funds to the principal artists and their direct expenses for creating the work.

The Fund will not consider:

• Commissions of new works by artists in which the applicant organization and artists are not collaboratively engaged in the making of those works

• Projects in which the lead artists and collaborating organization are not based in the eligible counties or those with multiple artists, most of whom are based outside of the nine counties

• Projects that do not feature the artist(s) centrally as demonstrated by the project descriptions and budget allocations

• Projects from lead artists or organizations that were awarded Creative Work Fund grants in June 2007 or September 2008

• Projects from artists or organizations that have not completed projects and final reports for previously awarded Creative Work Fund projects

How to Apply