Community-Run Public Art Microgrant Program: Info Session Online

Alex Lingnau: Let’s get started. Thank you all for coming to today’s info session. This is for the Community-Run Public Art Microgrant program. This call opened up on March 5, and today we’re going to go through a bunch of stuff about the program, a little bit background on CADA, and we’re going to do a run through on how to actually apply for this using our online application platform if you haven’t used that before.

Before we begin, I do want to do a land acknowledgment and just say that, we’re very fortunate to be gathered together today in Mohkinsstsis, the ancestral territory of the Siksikaitsitapi, or the Blackfoot people, comprising the Siksika, Kainai, the Piikani Nations, as well as our Treaty 7 signatories, the Tsuut’ina Nation and the Îyârhe Nakoda Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney First Nations.

Today this land is home to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government Districts 5 and 6, as well as many First Nations and Inuit from across Turtle Island. We acknowledge that there has been art, music, dance, storytelling and ceremony on this land since time immemorial, and it’s in the spirit of this land and its people that we do our work.

Okay. Getting into the program. Most important, my name is Alex Lingnau, I am the facilitator for this program, I’m the person you can reach out to with any questions, any issues that you have with the guidelines or with the application process I’m happy to help, and then Helen Hu is our public art coordinator, she can also help answer some questions, especially for any technical issues.

Getting into CADA. So I wanted to start out with a little bit of information about Calgary Arts Development and the public art program. So you can see here our vision is a creative, connected Calgary through the arts, where everyone is empowered to live a creative life. Our mission is that the arts have the power to create vibrant communities and bring together diverse voices and perspectives. We support artists in the development of their skills and the expressions of their creativity. Calgary Arts Development supports and strengthens the arts to benefit all Calgarians. As the city’s designated arts development authority, we invest in and allocate municipal funding for the arts provided by the City of Calgary and leverage these funds to provide additional resources to the arts sector. Our programs support hundreds of arts organizations, individual artists and artist collectives in Calgary. We are uniquely positioned to deliver and create a future public art program built upon our knowledge of and strong relationships with the arts community, and we’re creating a public art program that’s engaging, relevant, and accountable, our intent is to foster meaningful connections and dialogue between artists and communities, utilizing the public realm to reflect Calgary’s diverse stories and values. And you can learn more about the public art program at the link on the screen there, CADA.at/public-art-opportunities.

So, our role in the public art program is to commission new artworks through open competitions: these are calls to artists, we do a bunch of programming for youth programs, artists’ development, temporary exhibitions, and we’re also working to build public art awareness and activating the collection. We still work with the City of Calgary, and the City of Calgary is responsible for conserving our entire Civic Art Collection and all of the public art pieces owned by the City, and they also help us activate the collection.

Calgary Arts Development is committed to working with communities that have historically been underserved. We’re guided by the core principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility. We’re committed to the process of eliminating institutional racism, ableism, and barriers in our programs, policies, and practices by centring the creativity and leadership of those communities most impacted by structural inequities. Our commitment outlines a vision for a city where Calgarians of all backgrounds can access, create and participate in art as part of their everyday lives.

So these four pillars – the first one, equity, we want to help create equitable access for Calgarians who’ve had less opportunity for philanthropic and government support due to systemic barriers. And with diversity, we want to support artistic endeavors that reflect our diverse community and in supporting the work of artists of diverse backgrounds. Inclusion, we’re trying to engage a wide variety of voices and perspectives in shaping and furthering the work that we do. And through accessibility, we’re trying to eliminate systemic barriers that prevent people who encounter physical, mental, or cultural barriers to spaces, programs, and services from participating in the arts.

We also want to honour lived experiences and the intersectional and unique experiences of different people and communities, so we follow a nothing about us without us policy. If you are creating work about a specific community for any program with Calgary Arts Development, we need to know that that community has been actively engaged and consulted, and that there is a clear and intentional relationship.

Aligning with our commitment to EDIA, we also strive to work with applicants in a one-size-fits-one way, so you can reach out with any concerns about how your organization or project fits into the microgrant program, or our application process. And this goes for all of the programming we do at CADA.

Of course, there are some things we will not tolerate, some things like hate speech, cultural appropriation and active exclusionary behaviours, so please be aware that if your application or projects contain any of these items, they will not be accepted.

Accessibility and support. So, we are committed to open, fair and transparent processes. We understand that our programs and processes can create barriers to access for many artists and organizations who want to apply. In recognition of these barriers, our Applicant Support & Accessibility Policy is available for those who may need support from program staff or financial assistance to access support from someone outside of Calgary Arts Development.

If you need help or have any questions, please reach out to us at info@calgaryartsdevelopment.com, or you can reach out directly to me and I’ll be happy to connect you with the right resources. We can also provide support about other community resources for established, emerging newcomer, refugee and immigrant artists.

All right. Getting into the bones of the microgrant program. So here is a quick timeline of this program. So, as I said before, applications opened on March 5. Our application deadline is April 16 by 4:30pm, our evaluations will take place from mid-April to late May, and we will be notifying all applicants of whether they’re successful or unsuccessful in early June. We’re hoping to complete contracting and fund distributions in June, it might go into July, but we want to make sure anyone who has summer programs planned has the funds in place to do that.

Because we’ve changed our intake for this program, projects for this intake in specific will have 18 months to complete instead of the regular 12 months, so, any successful application will have until December 31, 2026 to complete their project. And we cannot retroactively fund projects, so all proposals for projects cannot be started before April 16, which is our application deadline.

Throat’s already getting dry.

Okay, so the Community-Run Public Art Microgrant program. We really believe that public art can be meaningful when it reflects the values of the community where it’s located. Applicants were asked to, or we really want people to come together with their communities and create art, initiate projects that respond to the people in that community and what they want to see in their public art.

So the microgrants are typically one-time funds given to community-run, short-term public art projects. This program is open to community-run organizations such as neighbourhood associations, nonprofit or charitable organizations, grassroots organizations, or cultural groups. We do kind of keep the term community group fairly broad, we want people who are maybe beginning or in the early stages of forming a community group to be able to apply for this. If you have any questions about eligibility, if your organization should apply for this, please send me an email.

The biggest requirement for this project is that groups must hire local artists to create public art in their neighbourhoods. You can apply for up to $15,000 in funding, and you can also apply, this is new to this year officially, you can also apply to repair and refurbish existing public artworks, or to create a second phase of an existing public art project.

So getting more into eligibility. As I said before, it’s open to nonprofit, community-run organizations, and that is a broad category. Basically, as long as you are not a for-profit business, you’re probably eligible for this program. Again, let me know if you have any questions about that.

Sorry, and I just forgot to mention before, if you guys do have questions, please add them to the chat. I won’t go over them until the end of this session, but we will get to all of them.

Okay, back to, apologies here, back to eligibility. So the activities must take place in Calgary. Because we are municipally funded, we do have to ensure that these funds are going to projects that are within the city. One application per group, per project, so you cannot fund multiple projects or you cannot apply to fund multiple projects with this grant. You must hire a local artist, and the artwork location must be free and accessible to everybody.

And as I mentioned before, new artwork, a new phase of an artwork, or revitalization of an existing artwork are all acceptable projects. The artwork must be safe for public interaction and artwork site must be approved by the site owner. Sculptures or works requiring engineering approvals will not be considered for this program. There is a lot to go through with eligibility, this is kind of a snapshot of the main items we’re looking for in applications, but please read through the guidelines, there is a lot more detail in there for eligibility, especially when we get into the budget and eligible expenses and activities.

Applications to this program will be reviewed by an independent assessment committee made up of artist peers and community members. The membership of the Peer Assessment Committee will be chosen through public nomination and staff expertise, and the 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, etc. Our assessment committees are held to the CADA Group Agreements, which you can find on our website, and we intend to commit to open, generous and respectful evaluations and communications.

Anyone can ask to participate in a Calgary Arts Development Assessment Committee by completing the Assessment Nomination Form online or by emailing publicart@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.

So the selection process for this program will take place, again, as I mentioned before, between April and May. Scoring is based on how submissions respond to application questions for a possible total of 100 points. The program, or the project description and theme is worth 25 points. Community engagement is 25 points. Community benefit 30 points. Your project plan is worth 10 points and your maintenance plan is worth 10 points. We will go into all of the criteria and what we’re looking for each of them.

Proof of site is rated as yes or no. Do you have it? Do you not have it? And budget feasibility is rated as appropriate or inappropriate. Some communities are eligible for 20 bonus points if they are in a neighbourhood that has been, is part of our group of neighbourhoods that do not have or have not received public art funding or public art programming from the City of Calgary or other different granting programs.

After scoring, the committee will meet to discuss the applications and make final selections in a meeting facilitated by the public art team. After that, we will send out notifications to all of these successful and unsuccessful applicants. We’re happy to provide feedback on your applications. Whether you’re successful or unsuccessful, you can always reach out to us to learn more about, the review process.

Okay, so the submission requirements. I’m going to do a live run-through of the online platform and how we register and how you can complete the application requirements online. Before that, I’m going to go through what we’re looking for in each criterion for this program.

So first up is the project description and theme, this is also new this year. We used to ask groups to choose one of five themes to create a project around, this year we are asking community groups to tell us what themes they want to work with. So, what’s important to them in their community? What are they trying to address? What do they hope to do with this project? Let us know more about why this is important to your community, and what really sparked the idea to do a public art project.

As I mentioned before, this category is scored out of 25 points. We’re looking for a brief description of your project, just give us an outline of what it’s going to be, be as clear and concise as possible. And then again, tell us what your themes are, what your what you’re aiming to address with this project, and let us know how the artwork relates to those project themes. We want to see a clear connection there.

Submissions are evaluated on the clarity of the project description and how well the project relates to the chosen project theme, and the strength of the connection to community.

Community engagement is worth 25 points. Here, submissions will be evaluated on how well you have described planned activities and how they will inform the project. Applicants are asked to answer the following questions, so, What type of community engagement are you planning and who are you inviting to participate? How will the artist be involved in community engagement and how will community engagement inform the artwork? So, are you going out to community and asking for feedback on potential artwork designs? Or maybe you’re asking people for an opinion on where art should be placed. Let us know what you’re asking from community. If you already been working with your community group and this work has already been done, let us know what happened. We really want to know what sparked this project and how your project will really help this community and include everybody.

Community benefit is scored out of 30 points. So, combined, community engagement and community benefit make up 55% of your overall score. This is really what we’re looking for with this project. So for community benefit, submissions will be evaluated on the benefit to community and alignment to your project goals. So we want to know how the project will benefit the community, how do you think this is going to make an impact in your community? What differences do you hope to make in your community or beyond, what are your greater goals for this project? Let us know really how you think doing this will add something really beneficial and really impactful to your community.

In both of these questions, community benefit and community engagement define who your community is. This doesn’t need to be the entire city of Calgary. Let us know who you’re targeting with this and who you’re really trying to benefit.

Okay, now getting into the technical stuff. Project plan and the maintenance plan are both scored out of 10 points. These are lower value in the overall score, but they are still really important to your project. The project plan, we basically want to know who what, where, when and how, so exactly just that — how are you going to do this project and with who? We really want specific project timeline with your anticipated start and end dates, details on planning, installation and completion stages, details on how the project will be accomplished and by who, so the specific people on your team, how many artists you might have working, how many volunteers you think you’re going to need? Let us know all those details so we know you understand how much work this project is going to be, and that you have the people involved and ready to do it.

We’d like to have details on how you will work with artists. So this can be how you’re selecting your artist if you’re, if it’s someone in your community that you already know and want to work with, or if you’re doing a call to artists and you’re going to ask for submissions from a bunch of people. Please include that in your project plan.

If you already know the artist you want to work with and you’ve started talking to them, let us know who they are, you can include their bio, link to their website. Just let us know who you who you’re planning on working with so we get a better idea of your overall project.

The maintenance plan is about what’s going to happen afterwards. So this is really different depending on what type of project you’re doing, but we want to know what happens at the end, how is this getting wrapped up? If it’s something like a mural, we want to know what your expected lifespan for this project is going to be and who is going to be maintaining the artwork in that lifespan, and we also want to know what’s going to happen when that lifespan concludes. Is the landlord asking that the mural gets painted over, or will the landlord take on maintenance at that point? Please let us know what you think is going to happen and how you’re really planning for that.

If you have a project that is temporary or an event-based project, let us know those details, be very clear that you have an end date. If there are any post-event meetings you’re doing with your community to kind of learn what you can do better or what people really liked, put that in your maintenance plan as well. We’d love to know that type of stuff.

So, proof of site and location bonus. So as I mentioned before, proof of site is a yes or no question. We want to know if you have it or if you don’t have it. We do ask for a letter from the landlord or the site owner, or a rental contract or agreement if you’re using a venue space. Include those in your application. If you cannot secure the site, especially for an event, if you can’t plan it, just the venue doesn’t allow you to book things so far in advance but you know you want to use that venue, ask them for a letter saying that like they are comfortable with what you’re planning and they would definitely book your event at their venue.

If you do not have a site, if you’re creating, sometimes we have zines or booklets created with this project or online projects, if you don’t have a specific site, that’s fine. Just let us know so that everyone understands that this is, this project does not require a site or a location.

So I’m going to go into a couple other things here about tangible sites. So when you’re planning your location, remember that your events and spaces requiring paid entry are not eligible for public grants. So you cannot charge a ticket price for the event. Applications will be reviewed by the program staff for site approvals prior to selection panel review. So if you do not meet siting review criteria you will not, your application will not be sent along to assessment. Some things to consider if you’re looking at public land, so if the project is to be on City-owned or Provincially owned land, you need to call 311, find out who owns that land and then start working with that group to get approval. It’s really not recommended that artworks be placed on Provincially owned land, getting approvals for this just can be really, really time consuming, and it might not work with the time period for these projects.

If you’re trying to do a project on City land or City infrastructure, or a pedestrian underpass or something like that, you are required to collaborate with your community association and have their support for the project. You will need a copy of a written agreement or letter of commitment with the community association, and you will have to go through some City approvals processes. We do not expect City approvals to be confirmed before your application is submitted, but we do want to know that you’ve taken the steps to get those approvals and have something to show that you’ve got support from your community association, and you’ve at least received some feedback from whoever you’re working with at the City that they are starting to look at the approval process for this with you. If you do, if you are successful, if we’ve granted your program and you need more support working with the City, we’re happy to help you with that.

So the location bonus, this is just a text box in the application where you’re going to write in the neighbourhood where the public art project will take place. If you put that in there, we will apply the bonus points if you do or do not, or sorry, if you do fall into the category of locations lacking in public art.

Okay, the budget. Budget is a big part of this project, so you are asked to provide a very detailed budget for this project. We are going to evaluate this as appropriate or inappropriate, so we want to know if the funds you are requesting are enough, or are they too much for the project that you’re proposing? A couple things it’s important to keep in mind when you’re doing your budget is if the budget appropriately pays artists, Indigenous Elders or Knowledge Keepers, any collaborators, people who are not volunteering on this project but are providing a big service to you in helping create it.

And one way you can look at artist fees are at the CARFAC website. So CARFAC has a couple different options for looking at what artists’ professional fees should be. Again, this is a guideline. It’s kind of something we work out with our professional artists, it’s not always accessible for smaller programs, but it’s a good baseline, a good understanding of the work artists do that should be compensated. They also now have a public art artist fee, suggested minimum fee schedule. I will send both of these links in an email after this session to everybody registered, but if you type in CARFAC into your search browser, you will be able to find these pretty easily.

We do want to know all the costs for every part of your project, so, this is all of your materials, this is any rentals that you need, this is any safety supplies you might need for your project. There’s a huge amount of things, small little things that go into creating these projects, most of them are eligible to be paid with grant funds. In the guidelines, there is a list of ineligible project expenses that I highly recommend everyone work through. We also have a budget template and budget expense examples and definitions available to download, those are available in the Frequently Asked Questions section of the guidelines under the question What should be included in the project budget? I will also send out those links to everyone registered here today.

Okay, so we are going to get into the online application process. So we use a program called Smart Simple for all of our applications, you might hear us refer to that or to the platform as Smart Simple, or if we’re emailing you about any technical issues you have, if we say Smart Simple, this is what we’re talking about. On the very bottom of the screen there you can see the link, it’s calgaryartsdevelopment.smartsimple.ca. You can also access this by going to our homepage and looking on the left side at the apply for grants, artist calls and funding button. If you click that, you will get a link to go right to the log in page. I am going to switch my screens now, and we’re going to do a quick run through of how the application actually looks online.

So once you go to the link you will go to this log in page. If you are new, if you haven’t used this before, you’re going to click the Register button down here and this will give you some registration options. This program is only open to organizations, it’s not open to individual artists or artist collectives, so you will have to register as a not-for-profit arts organization with a CRA business number or without a CRA business number.

I’m going to click on ‘without a CRA business number’ first, and here you will just get a page to fill out with all of your information. So once you’ve filled all of this out, make sure, especially here, for contact information, you have the name, email and phone number for the person who will be leading this project who is going to need to receive all communications from us about this project.

Once this is done, you can click the I’m Not a Robot and Submit buttons down at the bottom. You will be sent an email to set up your password, and once you do that, you will be able to log in on this page.

So we’re going to do that process here and go through the application.

This is your home screen. Once you log in up here under Open Opportunities this is where you’ll find any programs that are, that you’re eligible to apply for. Down here at the bottom, oh, something’s going on. These tabs are not the correct words. Normally, you’ll see actual letters or labels there, but you’ll always be able to find your ongoing applications here, if you have something in draft, it’ll be at the bottom of the page, and you can open it right from here once you’ve already started, To get there, though, we have to start the application, so I’m going to click on the Open Opportunities button up here, the loudspeaker, and you’ll find anything that you’re eligible for. You can click Apply to start applying right away. If you click on the View button, you’ll get an automatic download of the program guidelines. Those are again, very helpful to keep on hand as you’re doing the application and just making sure you’re answering all the questions that we’re looking for.

So I’m going to click on Apply. So it’ll give me a little general instruction, and then I can go to Begin Application.

Okay. So there are instruction boxes throughout your application, these just greyed-out boxes here will have a little bit more information about different criteria and different parts of the application up at the top here. Please remember to click on the Save Draft button located at the bottom of the screen every so often, that’s at the very bottom of the screen there, Save Draft, that will allow you to make sure all the work you’re doing is saved. You can exit this application at any time and come back to work on your application when it’s convenient for you, and all of that information will be saved.

Clicking on the Save and Validate button at the bottom of the screen will allow you to save everything you’ve been working on, and it will also do a check and see if you have any errors. This is really important to click before you hit Submit.

Okay so we’ll go through this again. We’ve got Your Information should be at the top, make sure it’s all correct, this is so the organization application ID and applicant name are all imported from your profile. So if anything is wrong here, if your organization mandate isn’t correct, if the type of applicant is incorrect, if your primary contact isn’t correct, you can always go into your profile to change any of this. You do that by going up to the right-hand corner, there’s a little icon with your initial in it, you’ll click on that and go right to My Organization, and this will let you edit all of the different fields that are automatically imported over into your application, this one has already been submitted, and you can submit. And then you can update at any time by just clicking the Update Profile button on the bottom, that will make all of these fields editable. Once again, you can make your changes and click Submit Profile, and all of that information will be saved and handed back over to your application.

If you’re in your organization profile or your personal profile, you can always go to the left-hand side of the page to get back to your application. Just click on the Applications tab and open up which application you are working on. So ours is this first one here, and it will bring us right back.

Okay. So your profile is good, everything’s up to date, everything on here looks good. You’re going to click your primary contact through the drop-down menu, and then you can go to submission requirements. So this is all of the criteria for this program. We do want to know how you heard about this call, that’s just for our impact team, and then we’ll get into project description and theme, so again this is where we want that brief description of your project and the resulting public artwork, and we want the explanation of the themes you’ve chosen to address and how they relate to your community.

And then explain how the artwork relates to the project theme. So three questions there. There’s a 500-word maximum on this category. That is a maximum, it is not a goal. We really encourage people to be direct and concise in their applications.

Next one is community engagement. So again, here, we’ll go through and answer these three questions that are in the information box up here. This is everything that is in the guidelines and that I’ve gone through in this program, just repeated here. Again, another text field, so I’m going to put some nothing in here and some nothing in here. You can copy and paste, if you’re writing this out in a word doc you can just copy and paste from your word right into these text boxes, you can use point forms, you can use full paragraphs. Really, anything in here should work.

Community benefit, same thing. We have three questions we’re looking for you to answer here. Some text in there and then project plan. So, the project plan, again, we have kind of a little breakdown here of specifics that we’re asking for. You can put this in the text box or you can write ‘Please see uploaded documents.’ You can do the same thing for your maintenance plan, you can either write your plan out in the text box, or you can just put ‘Please see uploaded documents,’ and then there is a field down here, the project plan and maintenance plan files where you can browse and upload any files you might have for your project, plan or maintenance plan.

We have this, sometimes people like to work in a spreadsheet for these types of projects, or if it’s a word doc or a PDF, you can upload those right into the field here, I do believe we have changed it this year. So you have to upload a PDF. We’ve had people upload Excel documents for it, which is fine, but because they’re not locked, they can get altered when assessors are looking at them if they accidentally press a button and something gets changed and kind of can ruin your, project plan. So PDFs only for project plan and maintenance plan files.

Your location. Again, here we’re just going to put in whatever neighbourhood you’re in, and then proof of site we want to see yes or no. Yes would be ideal, and then once you click yes, another drag and drop or browse filled field will open up here and you can upload your proof of site files. So again, a letter or email or a contract from the venue or site owner.

We have one little box for your funding request. So again, it’s up to $15,000, just let us know how much you’re requesting in that box. And then last but not least, the budget. So again, we have a couple of questions here that we want you to think about while you’re creating your budget, but I highly recommend looking at our budget examples and expense types so that you get a good idea or you can kind of give yourself that run through of all of the potential costs that could come up with this project. The more detailed you are in your budget shows how much more understanding you have of your project and what it’s going to take. So that’s why we’re looking for more details, we want to know you’ve really thought about what it’s going to take to do this project. We always encourage including a contingency in your budget for unexpected costs, no matter how well you plan out a budget and a project, things always happen, problems always come up, and we want to make sure that you do have extra funds to cover those costs. There’s no additional funding available for this project, so once you receive the amount you’ve requested, you cannot add more on top of that.

Okay, so once all of those items are complete again, you can click the Save Draft button at the bottom if you want to come back and look at it later before you submit, or you can click the Save and Validate button. I’m going to do that just to show you guys what happens when it’s not complete. You will get a little notice at the top here saying Submission Failed and giving you all of the reasons why, or all of the things you’re missing in your application or that haven’t been completed correctly, so, super important to press that button before you submit. I’m not going to go through and upload too many documents right now, but if I was going to submit this, I would fix all of the things that are highlighted in red. Most of this is just uploading documents here, and then I would click Submit.

Once you’ve done that, your application will come through on our end. We do a quick review to make sure that everything is complete, all of the files that you’ve opened up don’t have any technical issues, they look good, they’re opening properly. If anything’s missing, we’ll come back to you and ask for a revision, but hopefully not too many of those.

Okay, I am going to go back over to our PowerPoint presentation now. Oh, actually, sorry. Before I do that, I’m just going to go back to the homepage, up in the top right here. Can I just click on the Home button, that will bring you right back to this page. If for any reason, we do need a revision, it will show up, one of these tabs that is unfortunately not with the right name right now, we’ll say revisions, so if a revision comes up, it will show up in your action items, and it will also show up at the bottom of your screen under the revisions tab and you’ll be able to access it from there and make any edits that are needed.

Okay. Now we’ll go back to our PowerPoint.

All right. If you guys have any questions about the online application while you’re doing it, if anything comes up, feel free to reach out. This recording should also be available online within two weeks, so you can always refer back to this section if you need a refresher on how to set up your profile or how to go through the application.

Okay. So biggest question for this: What is public art? For Calgary Arts Development, we have a very broad description, all we need is an artist and a community working together to create public art for that community in a public space that is accessible to everyone. So we’re very, very open to new ideas, we really love to see projects that are kind of pushing the boundaries on what is public art, what the traditional idea of public art is, and open up our city to different forms of art that can really do great things for our communities, so this can be of course, murals, things that we see a lot in the city, super beneficial, we’d love to see them, we love to have them, but also, if you want to do something interactive or something like, classes for your community or working with an artist on something temporary, that’s fine. Digital work is great, anything that you’re using new technologies or introducing your communities to new skills.

Functional art is also great. Having a bench for a place for people to have a picnic that’s created by an artist can still be great public art. And it can also be living art, you can create art with people, you can create art with plants, you can create art with your environment. So we’re really, really open here. The possibilities are pretty much endless. If you want to know if your project idea is eligible, just send me an email and we can talk about it.

Okay, a couple things. So if you’re not an Indigenous person, but your project might include Indigenous content or works with Indigenous people and ways of knowing or doing, or you want to include Indigenous knowledge into your project, it’s very important to outline how you’ll be engaging with Indigenous communities and Indigenous Elders, or Knowledge Keepers or Indigenous collaborators you have on your project. We really want to know how these groups are included in your project team, what role they’re going to have on this project, and if they’re going to be included for the length of the project, or just for a portion, and we want to know how they’re going to be compensated. That’s something really important to discuss with the people you’re working with. Compensation varies greatly from person to person and for what they’re being asked to do, so we always ask that you, first of all, touch base with people who you want to work with and have those conversations right off the bat.

To get a little bit more information about even compensation or finding the right connections. We really recommend reaching out to the Confluence, previously Fort Calgary, Blackfoot Crossing, the University of Calgary Native Centre, the Elders Guidance Circle at the Calgary Public Library, and the Aboriginal Friendship Centre. I didn’t include it here, but the Lodgepole Centre at Alberta University of the Arts can also be a great resource as well, especially if you’re looking for Indigenous artists to work with, if you want to learn about protocols, if you want to know if what you’re doing is something that you can find, you’ll be able to find somebody in the amount of time who has capacity to take it on, these are all great places where you can start. And of course, we highly recommend that everyone review the White Goose Flying Report and the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Both, links to both of these are available in the guidelines. Whether or not you are using or want to work with Indigenous people on your project, these are great documents to read through. If you haven’t, just to give you a little bit more background and knowledge in what we’re trying to change in our city and our country and what we can do to be part of that.

Okay, and now some tips. So, I mentioned to briefly, but you will receive one last Eventbrite email after this session that has links to many of the things I talked about today and some of the items in this tips list. There’s also links to a lot of the things we’ve talked about in our Frequently Asked Questions section of the guidelines, so I do recommend reading through that, it covers a lot of ground.

Okay. So top tip: review the guidelines and the application checklist. The application checklist will be really helpful when you’re actually running through the online program. If you need help, let us know as early as possible. The more time you give us, the better we can help you.

In your writing your application, please remember to use plain language. Avoid art world or nonprofit world jargon, not everyone understands these terms, so we really ask that you just tell us what you mean in terms that everyone can understand. Be very clear in describing your project and the themes you are addressing. Again, we want it to be succinct, but we want this to be very clear, very straightforward so that assessors immediately get the picture of what you’re trying to do with this project.

It’s important to demonstrate capacity and awareness, letting us know that you have enough people involved to do the work that is required, and that you know what your community needs, that this project is in alignment with your community and is going to be beneficial and positive for them.

In your project plan and maintenance plan and your community engagement criterion, please be detailed about your plans. Let us know as much as you can about what events you’re planning, how the artwork will come together, and what will be needed to complete it, who you’re working with and if you’re partnering with other organizations, let us know who those people are. Again, those five main questions who, what, where, when and how, always come back to those. That’s what we really need to know.

Next up, do your research. Make sure you can back up what you’re stating in your application, especially with expenses. If you can get a quote for the work or materials you think you’re going to need to complete your project, you can upload that in the file upload section for the budget. If you’re trying to figure out how much you should pay your artist, if you can, we always recommend talking to an artist if we know not everyone knows who they’re going to work with right off the bat, especially this early on, but if you know what type of work you’re looking for, and you can reach out to some artists who do similar work, it might be a good way to get an idea of what fair compensation could be.

A lot of artists kind of have a sliding scale of rates, especially for community projects that have a smaller budget. They may not be able to contribute as much, but they might be able to work for a lower fee than they normally would for different projects. Again, a link to the CARFAC pages for professional artist fees and public art artist fees will be sent to registrants of this event. CARFAC is a great resource to look at what current kind of minimum payments are. Again, it’s not a requirement to pay those rates, but it gives you a good idea of what artists should be compensated for.

It can be really helpful to have somebody who’s not familiar with your project read your application before you submit. The questions they ask might uncover some gaps or assumptions you’re making, and really help you fill in those ideas or places where assessors might get stumped if they don’t feel like they have the full picture.

And again, take a look at the budget template and expense type definitions, those two links will come to you, but again, they’re available in the Frequently Asked Questions section. The expense types will hopefully give you an idea of what is eligible, what type of things we’re looking to see in your application. It’s not exhaustive, and it will have things that aren’t appropriate for the type of work that you’re doing, and it might not have everything that you need to have included in your budget, but hopefully it will get the wheels turning on things that might come up that you should be thinking about.

Okay. And last up, we have a community directory on our website. Artists and artist collectives and organizations submit their own profiles to give more ideas about what they do, what type of work they’re interested in. This can be a great place if you’re looking for an artist, or if you’re looking for arts organizations to partner with, this is first place to go and check out, we try to recommend that as much as possible. So that is available at the link at the bottom here or with that QR code, if you want to take a screenshot, it’s calgaryartsdevelopment.com/news-information/directory/. Give that a look if you are looking for artists to work with.

And again, program contacts: myself. I’ve said it many times, but I’m really happy to answer any questions you guys have over email about this project. Please let me know as early as possible if you think you’re going to need extra support for your application and we will try to do our best to get you the right support.

Questions

Okay, I’m going to pop into the questions tab. I think there’s already quite a bit in the chat, so we’ll open this up.

And I’m going to go to the top. Oh well there’s lots in here, so if you guys have questions keep adding them in. I’m just going to go through from the beginning to the end of our chat for now.

So first one: Will we receive a copy of the slides along with the promised recording? We don’t normally send out the slides, if you send me an email I can send that to you. The slides are part of the recording, you’ll see what what’s on screen today will be essentially what’s recording, but if you really want to have a PDF copy of this, I can send that to you directly.

Okay. Next one: Does one-time funds mean only one grant ever for the organization? One grant per project? So it is one grant per project. Organizations can apply multiple years in a row, just not for the exact same project. So, if you’re doing one project one year, your next project should either be a phase two of that project, something completely different, like altogether unrelated, or if you need to go in and refurbish that original project, you can now apply for the grant just to do that. But for an initial application, one grant per organization.

Another question: Can a community cooperative apply? As long as you are nonprofit, you can apply. Again, you can email me with a description of what your organization is and what you guys look like if you want to be really clear on eligibility, but really, we just want to know that you are some type of community-focused group doing work together on a somewhat regular basis.

Do you include funds for signage or is this expected? How do you tell the story of the piece? That is entirely up to the organization. So if you would like to include signage, make sure that’s part of your project plan, that would be a maintenance plan, a big maintenance plan thing as well, and make sure that there’s money in the budget for that. For telling the story of the piece, again, that’s up to you guys. We will ask, or everyone who’s successful is required to do a final report on their project once it’s completed. From that information, we create, a little description, and we do promote that on our website for each project, but if you want to do something larger than that, you can use the project funds to do that, just make sure it’s included in your application.

The next one: Are project groups encouraged to pay CARFAC fees. Is there education on CARFAC fees provided to applicant groups? So again, no, you’re not required to pay CARFAC fees, and I will send out some links to everybody here so you guys can take a look at the professional artist service fees and the public art artist fees that are recommended through CARFAC. Both have descriptions of not just amounts, but activities and kind of every role an artist could take on that they should be compensated for.

So maintenance is typically making sure the art piece is intact for the duration of the installation. Considering engagement and post-event follow up is interesting. Oh, sorry, that’s a comment, but thank you. Yes, maintenance is for the duration of the installation. But yeah, anything considering, what you want to do afterwards with your community group, if you guys want to host another event with community to ask for their feedback about everything that you did, you can use funds from this grant to do that. Just again, make sure it’s included in your project plan and your budget.

Okay. And I have a question here on the location bonus. So this comes up a lot because there are, most communities in Calgary do not have public art. It’s, something that is why we are doing, or why the public art program is being completely revamped, this is one of the biggest reasons, and the bonus points are allocated to communities that haven’t had really any type of art funding. So this can be things that aren’t seen on in a public space or aren’t permanent, so your community might have had artists or artists collectives that did receive grants for projects that they were doing that might have been temporary or that weren’t necessarily related to something that was going to be a huge community event. So we do count those things unfortunately, in this, it’s the way we look at arts funding for communities isn’t just based on permanent public art, so that can kind of be a question that comes up a lot specifically with this program. At the end of the day, the 20 bonus points do not automatically mean you will receive a grant. Those neighbourhoods and people applying from those neighbourhoods still need to provide a good application for a project that we see will have a lot of community benefit, so we encourage everyone to apply whether or not you’re going to receive those bonus points.

If this project becomes really, really competitive, the bonus points will give us kind of an at-a-glance way to look at neighbourhoods that we should be prioritizing. But again, this is a problem across the city, I get this question many, many times, while we’re doing this because our neighbourhoods do not have public art. If you look at the city’s public art map, you can see it’s concentrated in the downtown core and mostly along roads and C-train lines, so we’re doing that, or we’re doing stuff to change it, and you people applying for this are really doing something to change that.

Okay. Next up: Can an already existing and running charity organization apply? Yes, absolutely. This is open to any type of charitable organization. You can have been started a month ago or a ten years ago. You’re still eligible.

How do we deal with insurance for the installations or of the project and the artists participating? That’s a great question. This is up to the organization. So because this is a grant, CADA is completely hands off with how you run these programs. If you need insurance for your artist or for the location, if you need to have liability insurance just for the installation, those are things you need to be aware of and include in your budget. Thank you for bringing this question up. I try to touch on this normally in the info session, it is part of the budget expense template as well.

Okay, so this question: When there is a charitable organization that you are a part of and you receive approval in the form of a letter, can a member of the organization apply for the grant on behalf of the organization, or does it have to be a specific person in charge/member with a specific organization title to apply? You do not need to be the director of an organization to apply. We understand that this, for the most part, these projects are volunteer-run. We do want to know that the organization who is submitting the application, like their name, is going to be on the application, they’re aware of their responsibilities so they can assign anybody the role of project manager for this project, as long as they’re happy working with them. The organization will be the group that receives the funds, so they have to provide us with that information so we can deposit funds to them, and they’re also responsible for managing those funds. If the project manager is not a director on the board for that organization and they’re going to be managing the budget, we really recommend that you’re keeping all of your receipts and you’re very, very organized in maintaining how much you’ve spent, how much you have to spend coming up. But yes, a lot of the time, sometimes organizations will ask their lead artists to take on project management roles. In that situation, we just ask that the artist be compensated for the artwork that they’re doing, and also for the work that they’re doing to run the project.

Another great question: Can submissions be written using AI assisted text? We would have no idea if you were doing that or not. If you are using AI assisted text, please read it through before you submit it and make sure that it is very clear and that it is represents exactly what you want to do and how you want to be presented.

Okay. Are the themes listed in the guidelines, or are the themes determined by community interest/need? Yes. This year the themes are determined by the community and by the, or by the organization that’s applying. So we want you to tell us what sparked this project, what came up in your community that a public art project is going to solve?

Okay. I think I’ve covered the neighbourhood bonus question already, but if that comes up again, please let me know. And just asking for the contact page again, I will put that back up right now.

Since there are two intakes this year, is there a cap on successful applications for each intake? So, there is a cap, but it is not based on the previous year’s intake. We, if all applicants apply for the maximum of $15,000, we can fund up to 30 applications this year, and that was the same as last year, but they’re completely unrelated budgets.

Okay. We have someone collaborating with the Inglewood BIA, and they were wondering if they need to create a mural, mock up or some kind of concept art for the application, or would that be part of their design fee and work if the project gets funding? So, I’ll answer the last question first. We do encourage all organizations to provide a concept design fee to artists, whether they’re going to be paid retroactively or not, that is a huge amount of work to do. And again, that’s why it’s really important to talk to your artist beforehand and understand what they normally would charge for and what’s important that they are compensated for. Concept designs for specific installations should never be provided free of charge, just ongoing as a way to support artists in our community. At CADA, we find it really important to make sure that artists are paid for all of the work that they do.

As far as the application goes, you do not need to provide concept art or any visuals if you do not have them or do not want to at this time. Again, a lot of the time community groups will go out to community and ask for ideas on what the artwork should be and then give that information to the artists they want to work with so they can develop something based on that feedback.

Last one so far: Can an already existing and running charity organizations apply? Yes, I answered that before. Yep. No matter how long your organization has been around for and how long you’ve been running, you can apply. This is only not eligible for events. So if it’s a big community festival or event that you run every year, you cannot apply for funding to run that event.

Next question: Can an artist also be the project manager? Yes, they can. Again, we ask that if the organization is asking the artists to take on that role, that they’d be compensated for that, along with the artist fee for the public artwork.

Does it need to be a Calgary charity or can it be a worldwide one that has a local branch? It can be an international charity with a local branch. We really want to know, if you if you are international, we want to know what your branch does specifically in Calgary, how you’re connected to the community here, and how the work that you’re going to do is intended for this community in particular.

Okay. That’s everything in the chat. Does anyone else have any questions? We’ve got some time. Again, if anything comes up after this, you can always send me an email, I’m happy to answer any questions. If you have a more complicated project and you want to work through it, I’m happy to set up one on one meetings with any group, and we can talk through your whole project idea, any different concerns that you have, and how you might be able to apply for this if you think you don’t quite fit into this box.

But yeah. Thank you all for, coming today.

Oh, we’ve got one more question: So I want to create an animation for this project, but I don’t know how the public can interact with it. I would highly recommend that you check out EMMedia. I’ll put that in the chat here. Oops. Okay. I will put that in the chat afterwards. EMMedia they will, they’re an organization that does a bunch of different new media work in Calgary, they’re working with another group this summer on another microgrant project, specifically about using new media in the public realm and how people can interact with it.

There’s a bunch of different ways to do this. A lot of the time, if it’s temporary work, it can just be something where the artwork is paired with an event, maybe something that helps offer a little bit of education about what you do as an artist, especially as an animation artist. Giraf is another one, and the Quickdraw Animation Society are also great places to look for similar projects that have been done in the past, but again, that’s something if you want to talk more about it one-on-one, or if you have a group, an organization that you want to work with, please send me an email and we can have a meeting to discuss different options for this.

Next one: With the international charitable organization would you need a letter from the organization’s head, and can a member apply for the official person in charge has to apply? So we don’t need a letter from the organization, like the international organization, we just need to know that your local group is in support of this project a whoever they’ve designated to run the project is someone either on their team or is a volunteer that works with them regularly.

Okay, that was a lot of questions. Thank you guys so much. This has been a very active session so far, which is great to see, I hope we get a lot of applications this year. And yeah, if you have any questions, please reach out. The sooner the better. And we are happy to help you make sure you can submit an application for this.

All right. If there’s no more questions, I will let everyone go. I’m going to turn my camera off, but hang out for another five, ten minutes. If your questions pop up, I’ll answer them. But for now, thank you guys so much for coming. And yeah, good luck with all of your projects and project proposals.

Hey there, back again. Sensational Power just posted a question. For the local group, would you need confirmation by a letter or meeting with the local branch and members who designate a volunteer or person in charge? We do not, but it’s great support material. It’s not required, but it’s a great thing to add. You can put that in the project plan and maintenance plan file upload section. It’s any anything you can provide to show the support you have from your organization is really beneficial, it’s kind of a bonus on to what we’re asking for, but it is not required. We just need to know, or the organization just needs to know what their responsibilities are going to be. And again, I’m happy to meet with you and the organization you want to work with as their project manager, and then we can talk about everything that they’re going to need to be responsible for.

One more question, so: A letter of intent from the artist was mentioned at one point online. Is there anything specific that should be included in this? For that question, no we don’t. And again, this is not a requirement. An artist bio is great, having a letter of intent from an artist is an excellent thing to add, again, it’s a bonus. We wouldn’t be looking for anything super, super specific other than why they want to be part of this project and how they feel it aligns with their work and what they want to do for community.

Next question there: As a community organization, doing a public art project on community association property. Do we require a letter of approval? Yes you do. Great question. Even though you are the site owner, we still need to know that, we don’t want to assume anything in your application, so please make sure that it can just be a straightforward letter from the director of the board or a general manager of your organization, just stating that they are aware of everything that is going to be happening on their site.

Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for those questions.

Okay. Anybody else have more questions? I’m going to hang out for another probably five minutes. If anything else comes up. If not, thank you for joining me today.

Okay. Another one here: Can it be a simple art project such as a rock garden with paintings done by children to promote peace and peaceful messages of unity and diversity? Of course, there’s no requirement for size on this project. At the end of the day, smaller is better because even though $15,000 is a lot of money, it doesn’t go very far, especially when you have a lot of different elements in a project. So we just ask that if you’re doing a smaller project, the budget is appropriate for that project, but you can do as little as makes sense for your project and for your community.

Okay. And next one: We are organizing a charity performance on April 25 and have already started using our own funds for set design and other expenses. Would it be possible to reimburse these personal expenses using the grant funds? I’m going to get, Alexander, could you send this to me in an email? This one’s a little bit more complicated, and maybe I think we should have an offline conversation about your particular project and the timeline, because there’s some other questions I have that might affect my answer on that, but if you can. Yeah, if you can send me an email, to alex.lingnau@calgaryartsdevelopment.com, we can have a deeper conversation about what that means. I would say normally, yes, but I do have some more questions that I want to ask you to make sure that your whole project is eligible before I give you a full yes.

Okay.

Okay. Anything else from anybody who’s still online?

Okay. Again, I’m still here.

For the last question in there: Do we have any upcoming meetings for artist development or artist collective grants? I do not know off the top of my head, all I can tell you is to sign up for our newsletter, our info sessions will be announced there first, or our social media. If you go to our web page, there is a link on the homepage to sign up for our newsletter, but they all come up at different times depending on when the grants are going, are opening up. I so it’s kind of different every year. And yes, they would be info sessions. You can always reach out to the grants team as well, they’re just grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com. They will be able to provide you with a lot more concise information about those programs. I’m sorry, I do work on the public art team, and this is the only grant we have, and we’re a little bit separate.

There we go.

Awesome. Okay. Thanks, everyone. If, if there’s no more questions, I think I will sign off, but if anything comes up again, I’m always happy to talk. Send me an email, drop me a line and we can connect on your project. Okay. Thank you everyone for attending today. We’ll talk to you soon.