Welcome to the Online Information Session for the 2022 Artist Development Microgrant.

The purpose of this recording is to share some of the information that is already in the program guidelines and the frequently asked questions online, but in a more visual and auditory way with some added context, examples, and approaches that might be helpful when considering if you will apply and how best to do so.

That being said the most important information is included in the guidelines and FAQs so whether you watch this recording or not, please read those documents before applying.

My name is Taylor Poitras. I use she/her pronouns. I’m currently the Specialist for Individual and Collective Programs at Calgary Arts Development. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions about this program or need support applying.

Van Chu, our Grants Coordinator, is also available to help answer any general or technical questions you might have.

We currently live and work in Mohkínsstsisi, or Calgary, which is Treaty 7 territory. We want to take a moment to acknowledge that this is the traditional and ancestral territory of the Niitsitapi, or Blackfoot Nations, which include the Siksika, the Piikani, and the Kainai; we acknowledge the Beaver people of the Tsuut’ina; the Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley bands of the Stoney Nakoda First Nations; the Métis People of Region 3, and all Indigenous peoples who make the Treaty 7 region their home.

I want to take a moment to talk about our commitment to equity, which is an ongoing, never-ending commitment and learning journey.

It’s important to acknowledge that systems like granting and public funding, are usually designed in a one size fits all way, meaning they are designed for the dominant culture and are rooted in colonial, Western European, academic systems which create barriers to access for many artists in our communities who are seeking and deserving of support. One obvious example of this at Calgary Arts Development, is that we currently share our programs and accept applications online, in a written format in English. This alone creates technological, linguistic, communication and cultural barriers, to name a few.

We acknowledge that our actions — both conscious and unconscious, past and present—  have benefited some communities while limiting opportunities and outcomes for others including, but not limited to, Indigenous communities, Black communities, persons of colour, persons with disabilities, Deaf communities, as well as persons with diverse sexual orientations or gender identities.

As a public funder, we have a responsibility to ensure equitable access to public funding. We envision a city where all artists have the freedom, agency, and platform to share and amplify their stories, art, cultures and experiences: a city where Calgarians of all backgrounds can access, create and participate in art as part of their everyday lives.

To that end, we are dedicated to addressing and working to eliminate institutional inequity in our programs, policies, and practices. Our staff are accountable to ensuring that lines of communication are welcoming, clear, and open, and that our application and assessment processes are fair and deeply considerate. While we have been continuing to expand and improve our processes and policies around equity, accessibility, and accommodation, we still have a long way to go. We aim to continue building relationships and learning from our communities, particularly those most directly affected, about the specific challenges that exist in granting and working to create more equitable systems.

We have also identified equity priority groups and adopted a specific equity measure for some of our programs which I will speak more about later on.

In recognition of some of the barriers I mentioned, we will work one-on-one with applicants to develop accommodations or approaches that suit their unique abilities and situations.

Some examples of accommodations are: translation of written materials into other languages, including ASL, transcription of verbal meetings or audio and video recordings into a written document, language interpretation for phone or video meetings, video or audio applications (this means that if you if you would prefer to answer questions verbally you can submit an audio or video recording of yourself or our staff can help record your responses using an online platform, such as Zoom), and lastly grant writing assistance which I will describe next.

We want to recognize the limitations of our staff to adequately support all applicant needs, so we have begun to formalize a process for applicants to request financial assistance to help alleviate some of the costs associated with preparing and submitting an application, or a final report or receiving and accepting an investment. Basically, you can request assistance at any stage of the grant process.

Who can request this type of assistance?

Individuals, or the primary contact for a collective, who self-identify as an artist who is Deaf, or hard of hearing, or has a disability or is living with a mental illness, or an artist facing language, geographic, or cultural barriers.

To request assistance, just email us at grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com (the email is on the slide), ideally two to four weeks before you plan to submit your application.

You’ll need to provide the name and contact information of someone who can help you, along with their hourly rate. This could be a trusted friend, family member or artistic peer, or it could be a professional service provider. We may be able to make recommendations for some service providers, depending on the type of service, but in most cases, we look to the applicant to make that choice. They will email us an invoice with the hours that they assisted, and their hourly rate and CADA will pay them directly.

Please view the Application Assistance Policy for more information including an outline of the maximum contribution amounts that we are able to provide for different programs and different types of assistance.

Now, let’s dive into the program: the Artist Development Microgrant.

This program is intended to support professional and business development activities for individual artists and artist collectives. The overall goal of the program is to contribute to the skills and knowledge required to advance artists’ careers and develop artistic practices in Calgary, or Mohkínsstsisi.

So, what can you apply for?

This program is intended to fund activities related to the development of an artist’s professional artistic practice and career.

This program cannot fund activities that are primarily focused on the creation and production of artistic work.

Eligible activities may include:

Professional development or artistic skill development through training, mentorship, experimentation, courses, residencies, etc. This could be ongoing development or new, for example, the development of emerging, or re-emerging or pivot practices.

You could also apply for business development including knowledge building in entrepreneurship, marketing, finance, and more. Examples of this could be business training, marketing training, tax literacy, budgeting, business finances, or mentorship.

Career development activities could include the development of platforms to share and sell your work, the development of audiences and artistic networks, etc. These could include expenses related to marketing, networking, professional fees, technology, or capital.

Activities funded through this program must be completed within six months of grant notification.

This program provides one-time funding to professional individual artists and individuals who work in artist collectives. Artists should be living and working in Calgary, in any artistic discipline at any stage of practice.

Please read both the program guidelines and FAQ page for more information about general eligibility and for a full glossary, including definitions for professional artist, artist collective, etc.

Applicants may apply for up to $5,000 towards their activities and the total pool of funding available through the program this year is $325,000.

While professional development opportunities are often centred on an individual’s own learning, growth, and development we have opened up this program to include applications from artist collectives as well. If a collective chooses to apply as a collective, they will be subject to the same $5,000 maximum request amount, however there may be situations where, pending staff approval, the requested amount may exceed $5,000.

When a professional or business development opportunity will benefit the collective’s core goals and purpose but will not impact each individual member’s practice or skillsets, they may apply as a collective for up to $5,000. An example would be the development of a professional website or online storefront for the collective — the expenses are related to a single product and would not change regardless of how many people were in the collective.

When an opportunity will benefit each individual member’s practice and skillsets outside of the collective, but full participation of every member of the collective is necessary to get the full impact of the opportunity, then you may apply as a collective and request an exception to the maximum request amount. An example is a residency program that your band has been invited to participate in – the opportunity is for the band, but each individual needs a plane ticket and a meal plan, so expenses will vary depending on how many people are in the group.
If this might apply to you, please reach out to discuss before applying.

Funds from this program are intended to support expenses related to accessing opportunities.

There is a list of eligible expenses in the program guidelines that we strongly recommend you read over, but I want to highlight a few specific things to be aware of:

The first is that we have increased the maximum cap on equipment purchases from $1,000 to $2,000 this year. This is in recognition of a number of things, but primarily the impact the pandemic has had on artists and their ability to make and share work in an online or digital way and the increased demand and limited availability to rent certain equipment within the community.

This means that you’re able to request and use up to $2,000 of this grant towards the purchase of equipment, which includes hardware and permanent software. As with any expense item in your budget you will want to make sure that you have made a clear case for how this equipment is directly related and relevant to the completion and success of your proposed activities and goals. Be specific about how this equipment will impact your practice or development. You might speak to your rationale for purchasing rather than renting, given the goals, scope or length of your activities. There is no limit on rental costs for equipment – only purchases.

If your total equipment purchases exceed $2,000, you will need to clearly show how the remainder or difference will be covered by other revenues in your project budget.

While course fees are eligible, this refers to individual courses or continuing educational courses that do not count toward a credit, diploma or degree granting program – in other words we cannot pay for your diploma or degree, so if you are taking courses in pursuit of this or making work related to this, we cannot cover any costs associated.

Since this grant is not intended to fund activities primarily focused on the creation or production of artistic work, material expenses are only eligible if they are necessary for accessing the specific development opportunity.

For example, if you are attending a residency that is primarily focus on learning and developing your practice or a particular skill or may be about growing your network and connecting with other artists, but there is also an expectation or an aspect of the residency that involves creating work while you’re there, then you may request material expenses since they are necessary to fully participate and benefit from that residency experience.

For the same reason, we have not included artist fees as an eligible expense. However, you are able to request per diems, which is a daily fixed rate for meals, lodging and incidentals. Per diems are eligible for opportunities that take place away from your primary residence. If you’re accessing an opportunity that is local and you need support around subsistence expenses, for example, rent, food, or childcare, in order to be able to access and participate in that opportunity you may include this as well in your application. For example, if you are taking part in a 2-week intensive training program and need to hire a babysitter for 10 of those days, otherwise you would not be able to access the training, that would be an eligible expense.

If you have any questions about eligible expenses, please reach out.

Here is a quick overview of the program timeline.

We will accept applications in four intakes throughout the year between March to November 2022.

Applications first opened for the first intake on March 14, 2022.

The deadline or cut-off for the first intake was May 2, 2022.
The deadline or cut-off for the second intake is July 4, 2022.
The deadline or cut-off for the third intake is September 6, 2022.
The deadline or cut-off for the fourth and last intake of the year is November 7, 2022.

Applications must be submitted by 4:30pm MT on the deadline dates in order to be assessed in that intake.

Update (May 2022): Notification of results and fund disbursement will occur within six weeks of each intake deadline.

Activities that are funded through this program must be completed within six months of grant notification.

This timeline is important to consider if your opportunity or activities are fully reliant on receiving this grant. If cashflow is a concern for you, consider applying for something that occurs after the notifications and funding will be released for that period.

When Should You Apply?

To help make sense of the intake schedule and to help applicants better understand when they should apply to the microgrant, based on when their activities will take place, we have created this chart, which is also located in the program guidelines.

You’ll want to ensure that you apply to an intake period where, if you’re successful, your activities will occur within the date range indicated in the far-right column of the chart, which is within six months from that intake notification date.

For example: If your activity occurs in June 2022, you may apply for intake 1 or 2; if your activity occurs in November 2022, you can apply during any of the four intakes, but it’s important to know that your application may get rolled over into future intakes if you apply early and we need to prioritize applicants whose activities occur earlier in the year.

So, we recommend you apply in the intake that is closest to when your activity occurs, knowing that some opportunities need more time to confirm. If you do have an activity or opportunity that must be paid for well ahead of when the actual opportunity will occur, or some other circumstance that might require that you apply earlier, please reach out to discuss this.

If an application is not recommended for funding by the committee, you may reapply to the next intake, so long as your activity still falls within the eligible date range for that intake. We also ask that you book a 30-minute meeting with the program specialist, myself, to discuss your application before resubmitting, as there may be some important or helpful feedback to incorporate before reapplying.

Application eligibility can vary by program, so always read the guidelines for the program that you are applying to.

Some important eligibility rules for the microgrant are as follows:

An applicant may only apply for one opportunity or one phase of development to the microgrant. This means that you should not lump many separate, disparate or disconnected activities into one grant request just because there might be room within the budget. The opportunity or activities you apply for should be interconnected and related to a specific professional or business development goal.

We will only accept one application per individual or collective, per intake. This means you cannot submit multiple applications to the program for different opportunities and you may only submit one application as either an individual or as part of a collective to the program – not both.

You may only receive one microgrant per year as either an individual or collective. For example, if you receive a microgrant as an individual artist in intake one, you may not apply as a core member of an artist collective in intake two. You can however reapply if you’re unsuccessful in a previous intake, as I mentioned.

While you may receive more than one CADA grant in a year, each grant must be from a different program and for different projects, or a very distinct and discrete phase of a larger project. In general, a project may not receive funding from more than one CADA grant regardless of calendar year. For example, you could receive both a microgrant and a project grant from CADA this year, as long as they were for different projects and activities, that have not already been funded by CADA through another grant program.

You may not apply to this program if you have final reports that are past their due date for prior grants. This does not refer to open grants that you have with CADA that are ongoing, only those which have a late or overdue final report. You must first submit your overdue report or speak with us about a possible deadline extension.

Beginning in January 2023, you may not have more than four open grants with Calgary Arts Development, including grants for which a deadline extension has been approved. Applicants are encouraged to take this policy into consideration when planning applications in 2022.

Applications to the program will be evaluated based on the program criteria by a committee made up of artistic peers. Artistic peers include individual artists and arts workers with experience and knowledge from a variety of artistic disciplines and practices.

Assessment committees are chosen to represent the broad diversity of Calgary and its artistic communities, including but not limited to artistic discipline, gender, sexuality, age, religion, beliefs, nation, physical and neurological identities. Peer committees help ensure that we are fairly and responsibly distributing public dollars to artists on behalf of the citizens of Calgary.

A recommending committee of seven members will be created for the year to evaluate this program.

We pay assessors an honorarium to serve on any of our committees. This honorarium has been increased from past years and is outlined in the Assessor Terms of Reference. I would encourage you to read those terms to understand the responsibilities and expectations that assessors are asked to commit to.

Assessors are kept confidential and anonymous until next year, when a full list of assessors is posted as part of our annual report. Assessors are required to declare conflicts of interest according to our Conflict-of-Interest Policy. This means they will not evaluate applications where there is a conflict.

The membership of the peer committees will be chosen through public nominations and staff expertise. If you or anyone you know is interested in assessing any of our programs, there is a nomination form on our website, or you can send us an email.

How to apply?

This application form will be available within our new grant platform, Smart Simple, which we have begun transitioning to this year. The link to the new grant platform is available on our website under Grant Login.

If you’ve applied to CADA in past years, you would have received emailed instructions for how to login to the new platform, or how to register a new account. For anyone who has questions about this please reach out to us for assistance.

When you login to the new grant platform, the first thing you want to do is update your profile.
Profiles will still ask for your current contact information, but they will also now include items like your artistic practice statement and your artist resume or CV. It will also ask you to state things like the artistic disciplines you actively work in and your years of practice.

We’ve moved these items to your profile so that they can live there, and you won’t need to prepare and upload these items every time you wish to apply to a CADA grant program. Instead, try to keep this general practice information up to date and when you apply to a program, like the microgrant, these items will automatically port over to your application for you. There is also a new question in the profile that asks if you’re interested in assessing.

Besides your profile information, here is a checklist of everything you’ll be asked to provide in the microgrant application.

You’ll include a brief one sentence description of your proposed activity, meaning that you’ll basically tell us what you want to do with the grant in 25 words or less. For example, you could say that you wish to attend a three-week writing residency in Banff or that the grant will be used to create a new website for documenting, marketing and selling your work.

You’ll indicate the amount you are requesting from this grant, which is up to $5,000. You’ll indicate the start and end date of your activities, remembering to ensure that your activities fall within the eligible date range for the intake period you’re applying to.

The only written section of the application is where you’ll describe your planned activities and goals. This will be between 300 to 600 words. There will also be a budget form within the application itself that you will fill out, including all relevant expenses and revenues. And lastly, you will upload any relevant support material.

Your artist statement, which will be located in your profile, is basically an introduction to you and your overall artistic practice and goals.

Artist statements shouldn’t be overly long or difficult to understand (usually between 100 to 300 words). This does not need to be a manifesto on your artistic practice, but rather a concise and helpful overview. It should demonstrate who you are, what you value, what kind of work you make, how you make it and why it is important to you.

Your artist statement will likely change over time as you and your practice do. Remember that context matters; the type of artist statement that you would submit to accompany a gallery show or as program notes is going to look different than the type of artist statement you share with a grant committee.

Keep in mind, this introduction provides the most significant context for how assessors understand how the activities proposed in your application will connect to your overall practice and goals.

Another piece that is now located in your profile, is your resume or curriculum vitae (CV).
This is a clear list of experiences relevant to your artistic practice. It can include things like education, trainings, workshops, past work, media, awards, grants received, and much more

A resume or CV can be a helpful tool for assessors to view alongside your artistic practice statement.

There are many formats, and some may be discipline specific. For the purposes of our programs, simplicity and readability are more important than fancy formatting. Be sure to include important information such as dates, locations, and a very brief description of each experience, if needed.

The written section will ask you to describe what you want to do, when and where it will take place, who will be involved, how it will happen and why it’s important to you.

It can be helpful to describe why and how you came to decide on the who, what, when and where of your project. For example, why have you chosen a particular mentor to work with? What specifically did you look for when researching and selecting a web designer? Why is it necessary and important for you to partake in this specific residency overseas?

While it might seem obvious to you, it can be helpful to share some context around your decision making and thought process to really make a strong case for your proposed activities and their potential impact.

This section will also ask you to speak about your goals and your intended outcomes. Depending on what you are applying for, this section could include goals or outcomes related to your artistic practice, skill development, learning, training, experimentation, marketing, financial skills or literacy, expanding or developing platforms, audiences or networks, relationship building, growth, sustainability, and so much more!

Consider why these goals or outcomes are important to you at this stage in your practice or career? How will this specific opportunity or activity allow you to achieve these goals or desired outcomes? You might consider how you will measure success, learnings, or impact. How will you know if you’ve achieved your goals?

This is the only written section so make sure that you include all relevant information needed to clearly describe your activities, goals, and outcomes. Try to be straightforward and specific.

If you’ve applied to CADA programs in the past, you might remember our old budget template. Now that we have moved to Smart Simple, the project budget is located directly in the application form online.

Your budget will ask for a list of all relevant expenses and a list of all relevant revenues. Make sure to account for the entire scope of the activities that you are applying for. Each line item in your budget has a notes section that I strongly recommend using to give additional information about each expense or revenue item including calculations, breakdowns, or descriptions.

Our advice for approaching a budget for this program, and all programs really, is to first consider what opportunity or activity might fall within the general range of the grant program, and budget for what you realistically need to complete that activity. Imagine how it would run ideally, and then build your budget off that, rather than starting at the maximum amount and building backwards.

If your budget exceeds the maximum amount that you’re able to request through this program, then you might either reconsider the scope of your activities, look for where you can reduce costs, or think about other funding or revenues to supplement your overall budget.

Your budget should balance to zero, meaning your total expenses should equal your total revenues. If your total expenses exceed the amount that you are requesting from this grant, you will need to show how you will fund the remaining expenses, either through fundraising, other grants, sponsorships, your own contribution, earned revenue such as sales, in kind donations, etc.

If you are applying for additional funding outside of this program but it won’t be confirmed before the deadline, do your best to demonstrate that you have done the proper planning and indicate what is confirmed and what is still pending at the time of applying.

While support material is optional it is highly recommended. These are additional materials that you will upload to your application to help support your proposal.

For example, confirmations, letters of acceptance, budget support such as quotes or rates, course descriptions, bios, research, samples of your work, planning documents, support letters, or CVs from others involved such as a mentor or instructor.

The support material that you choose to provide should be relevant and meaningful to your application.

There will be a list of the allowable file types and sizes, but you should have plenty of room. One of the nice things about the new grant platform is that you can now upload media files like audio, video, or images directly into the grant application online. There will also be room for pdf documents.

Lastly, please be considerate of the committee’s time. Assessors will only be asked to review about up to 5 minutes of support material for each applicant. They will be reading many applications so be respectful of how much additional material you chose to include and try to be succinct. Direct their attention to the most important elements of what you’re sharing. For example, if a long video is included, you could direct assessors to the most important 2 minutes to watch.

All the applications to this program will be evaluated based on the same criteria. Assessors will rate the level to which they agree with the following three criteria statements:

Criteria #1: The application demonstrates a clear set of goals and a deep understanding of why these activities are important to the artist at this stage of their practice or career.

How the assessors understand this criterion, is based on what you tell us about what is important to you and your practice, what your goals are, and how this project will allow you to achieve them. Ensure that you’ve provided enough information and context for the assessors to draw these connections. The assessors should be able to see a logical throughline that connects your practice, proposal, and goals.

You should be able to be honest and show an awareness of where you are in your practice and career and what growth or success mean for you. Being able to recognize the challenges, gaps, or barriers that you face as an artist can actually help demonstrate thoughtfulness, intentionality, awareness and potential. It creates an opportunity to see how an investment in your practice might actually leverage you into finding solutions to those challenges.

While it can by tempting to paint a rosy picture for the committee, demonstrating that you’ve taken time to consider and reflect on how you undertake your work or challenge your own assumptions shows the committee how you are well set up to steward a public investment in an effective way.

Criteria #2: The application demonstrates a deep understanding of what is required to undertake the project. This is demonstrated by a clear, achievable, well-researched and supported description and budget.

While the application is considered holistically, the primary elements that will relate to this criterion are your project description and budget, and maybe some of your support material.

These planning pieces should clearly outline what you will do, what tasks and activities are required, what it will cost, how much time it will take, and other important information such as who you will work with, why them and how. You want to demonstrate that the project is achievable, well researched and well supported.

Criteria #3: The application includes all the relevant information required to create overwhelming trust and confidence that the activities will be completed as described, and the applicant will reach their goals.

This last criterion basically asks if after reviewing your entire application there is a strong sense of confidence and trust in investing in this project. Feasibility is important within a microgrant that is intended to support activities that will be taking place within the next 6 months. Assessors shouldn’t be left with lots of questions, confusion, or doubt.

Every part of your application should work together to tell the same story and paint an authentic and complete narrative of who you are, what you want to do, how you will do it and why it’s important.

Based on the information you provide in your application, assessors will rate the level to which they agree or disagree with each of the program criteria we just covered. The levels of agreeance are: strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree.

Over the past few years, we have been adjusting our scoring to make it clearer what you are being evaluated on and how you might achieve a highly rated application. We have also been adjusting our scoring processes and tools to suit each program and incorporating feedback from applicants and assessors.

We’ve chosen to use descriptions and agreeance ratings this year rather than numbers or numerical scales in an attempt to tie assessor evaluations more directly to the criteria of the program, which we believe should help prioritize investments.

In this program we will split the pool evenly across the intakes, which means we can fund a minimum of 16 applications per intake.

Within each intake period, assessment committees will review applications in the online granting interface and evaluate each application according to the criteria we just reviewed.

CADA staff will download assessor evaluations into a scoresheet for the committee to review their overall recommendations together in a meeting facilitated by the program specialist. The program specialist is responsible for facilitating these discussions and ensuring that the conversations are fair and appreciative, and that assessors are acting within the Group Agreements and process outlined in the Terms of Reference and Program Guidelines.

Each criteria statement will be weighted equally. The score assigned to each rating will be consistent across all criteria statements. For example, ‘Strongly Agree’ will always equal the same number of points. Calgary Arts Development staff will review the committee’s final recommendations and finalize the funding list.

CADA reserves the right to adjust assessment processes and the program timeline due to application volume if needed. Applicants and assessors will be notified if significant changes occur.

If there are applications that are assessed equally but insufficient funds in the grant budget to support these applications, priority may be given based on the following considerations: opportunities that are fully confirmed, opportunities that are urgent or time sensitive, and opportunities from equity priority groups.

Applicants will be invited to fill out a voluntary self-identification form directly in the grant application. All questions in this form are optional. Applicants that self-identify as belonging to one or more of these equity priority groups are automatically considered for this equity measure, and I’ll describe those groups in a moment. Responses to these questions are not visible to assessors. Access to this information is limited to the research and impact team and the grant program staff at Calgary Arts Development. Information collected in this section of the application also helps us track who is applying and identify gaps to ensure that grants are awarded in an equitable manner.

The equity priority groups that I mentioned that are identified for this program are: Indigenous, Black, persons of colour, Deaf persons, persons with disabilities, persons living with mental illness, 2SLGBTQIAP+ individuals
For details on each of these groups, please refer to the equity priority group descriptions on our website. These are linked in the program guidelines as well.

What is the purpose of equity priority groups? As we shared earlier, CADA acknowledges that there are many barriers to access and full participation in our society, sector and in granting, which have historically disadvantaged some groups over others. In order to help address underserved communities who have experienced barriers to funding and access to opportunities in our sector, we have identified these equity priority groups and adopted this specific equity measure.

These priorities and descriptions were adapted from the Toronto Arts Council’s Equity Framework, and we are very grateful to them for their work in this area as well.

Equity priority groups, processes, policies, and measures will continue to change and be adapted as needed based on ongoing evaluation, community engagement and feedback. This is an iterative process that is intended to be responsive.

Some general grant tips:

Using plain language rather than academic language or ‘artist speak’ is often clearer and more concise.

Avoid jargon or technical language, remembering that the assessment committee will be made up of people from many different practices and experiences. Don’t assume that they will understand your specific practice or language. If you are speaking about something that is unique to your discipline or practice, be sure to define it.

Assessors really appreciate being able to easily read and understand an application since they are reading so many.

Be authentic to where you are in your practice and career. Having an appreciative sense of what gaps, challenges, or barriers you might experience in your work and how you might move through those demonstrates capacity, awareness, and potential.

Remember that you are not expected to be everything to everyone, and your application will not benefit from trying to write or represent yourself in a way that you think assessors might want to see.

Do your research. Make sure that you can back up what you are stating in your application. In other words, show your work, don’t just tell.

Use an outside eye, meaning it can be helpful have someone else review your application and give feedback. This could be someone who is familiar with your discipline or practice, or someone completely outside of it. Both will likely be able to uncover different gaps or assumptions you’re making or ask questions that can help you get clearer and more specific.

Start this process of applying early. Give yourself time to put your ideas and plans together, to leave it, reflect on it and come back to it with fresh eyes. Give yourself time to have others take a look at it, to ask questions, to gather support material (support material might actually depend on getting a letter of confirmation or support from someone else.) You want to ensure you’re putting in an application for the activities that you’ve done the best planning for, so try not to rush.

Lastly, it’s important to consider the tax implications of receiving a grant. If successful, you will receive a T4A tax form from CADA and it’s important to know what is taxable income, and what are deductible expenses and how best to track and manage those.

Our FAQ page has some information and resources about taxes; however, Calgary Arts Development does not offer formal tax advice. We highly recommend that you consult a tax professional or accountant when planning your grant applications and preparing your taxes each year.

Here is the contact info for this program again. We are available to answer any questions that you might have before you apply. There may be something this presentation or the guidelines did not cover so please don’t be shy and reach out if you have any questions or concerns and thank you so much for listening. Thanks to our interpreter Wanda for interpreting so beautifully.

https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/guidelines/artist-developme…-update-may-2022/