Hello,

We want to alert you to some changes in MAP’s procedures for reviewing grants. Beginning this fall, MAP will require a Letter of Inquiry (submitted online) to determine how closely a given project aligns with the MAP Fund goals. LOIs will be reviewed by evaluators and MAP staff, and selected projects will be invited to submit a full application.

Please see the calendar on the MAP home page and make sure you are clear on all the deadline dates!

HOW WE CAME TO THIS DECISION

The change comes after careful consideration and in response to a recent survey of MAP applicants, which overwhelmingly indicated a preference for the LOI format. In recent years, the number of submissions MAP receives has skyrocketed, and the level of sophistication of proposals has also increased substantially. As a result, the statistical odds of receiving a MAP grant have gone down, and applicants report that building a full application, with work samples and detailed budget, is increasingly onerous, given the difficult odds.

We also felt that implementing an LOI might help organizations better strategize their overall fundraising efforts. With this system, applicants will know within six weeks whether or not their project is in serious contention for the grant.

If, on the other hand, an applicant is invited to make a full application, the chances of the project receiving MAP support increases from the current less than 5% to approximately 15%. That’s still a difficult number, but it’s an improvement. In addition, the time between making the full application and receiving notice of funding will decrease to three months from the previous four.

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES?

As we see it, there are two big ones.

1. Artists and organizations need to think through their projects and articulate their goals  three months earlier than with our previous system. For example, in the upcoming round you’ll be submitting an LOI in October to seek funds for projects happening some time between September of 2010 and August of 2012. Our hope is that planning ahead will ultimately be to everyone’s benefit. But we would like to hear how this schedule works for you.

2. An LOI system can be difficult for artists whose work is less well known, or whose practice is extremely localized. On this count, MAP will take the responsibility. If we feel we cannot confidently assess a project through the LOI, we will take the time to follow-up with the artists until we feel we our decision is fully informed and fair. Such instances will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

FORMAT AND GUIDELINES

The online Letter of Inquiry will be identical to the previous full application. It will simply not include a detailed budget, work samples, or statements from lead artists (though it will require their bios). There will be no new questions or sections, and everything you submit will be usable/editable if you are invited to make a full proposal.

Note that individual artists must submit an LOI through a fiscal sponsor, as previously required.

We will be holding online and in-person information sessions beginning in the fall. As ever, you are welcome to call or email the office if you have specific questions or concerns. You can also post here.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

Thank you for your feedback, your cooperation, and, most of all for your inspiring work. We look forward to working with you through the next application and grant cycle.

All best,

Moira

I had an interesting exchange with Ivan Talijancic of Wax Factory in NYC. He raised some concerns about the new program at MAP. I want to share out correspondence, and invite others to comment.

On 2/18/09 8:20 AM, “Ivan Talijancic” wrote:

Dear Moira,

I hope this note finds you well…and, undoubtedly, busy!

Just wanted to offer a quick reaction to the press release that recently went out about MAP’s new program.
You probably recall some of our earlier conversations about my (now running on 10 years, I believe) experience with MAP and some bones I had to pick in that regard, though the bottom line is, in fairness, that regardless of my frustrations with that process, ultimately it in not my place to question how a private foundation funding gets expended, or what its priorities should be.

There is comment I would like to offer, however, that I believe is not moot. Considering that the feedback I distinctly recall receiving on more than one occasion in response to my proposals was literally to the extent of “if only we had another $100k, you definitely would have gotten funded”, I just find it unfortunate that MAP did not choose to use the influx of new funding to create more opportunities to new and returning applicants, especially during these tough economic times. I am not sure how the present decision to further fund those who have already been supported, often multiple times, appeared more equitable than funding a new batch of artists, especially as the shortage of funding had been invoked in the past as an explanation; and also taking into consideration the frustrations expressed by the field that are even quoted in the press release below.

That’s all. I am hoping that this feedback in constructive in some way. Feel free to share it (or not) if it seems appropriate.

All the best,
I.

On 2/19/09 12:32 PM, “Moira Brennan” <moira@mapfund.org> wrote:

Dear Ivan,

Thank you so much for your note. It’s very important to me that people express their views around MAP in general, but especially so when we make any major programmatic shifts. And frankly, I’m surprised I have not heard this feedback from more artists. I suspect you speak for many.

I share a lot of your feelings around this decisions, though with quite a bit more ambivalence and, necessarily,  a different perspective.

About the feedback: there is indeed a certain percentage of work reviewed each year by our panels that easily meets all our criteria — artistic strength, innovates within its discipline or tradition, is viably conceived and will likely be realized — and, if we had more cash, should therefore really be being funded. (Needless to say, since we operate under a panel system that’s “live” each year, I could never guarantee that a particular work would be funded. I want to apologize if I misled you on that front. I meant to speak encouragingly, which I stand behind; I consider your work quite strong. But I can only make such assessments generally, and I should have been clear about that.) What is that percentage? It grows every year, as other sources of funding recede and as training, will and ambition among artists increases. These days, I would say it’s between 40-45 percent, and a case could be made that it’s a lot more than that. And, if we were to give each of those projects a grant the size of the average MAP grant, we’d need another 500K.

About our decision to fund artists who have received 2 or more MAP grants over a 5-year period: Let me preface what I’m going to say here with my conviction that you do indeed have a place in questioning the way foundations choose to spend their money. Because of the tax structure that affords relief on earnings that private and corporate entities accrue IF they spend it on “charitable” causes, the money held by foundations is essentially the people’s money. It is part of the same pool to which you contribute with income tax and from which you benefit with roads, schools, etc. This is a simplification, but essentially the case. The professionals, like me, who manage that money are public servants, accountable to the general public for the decisions we make. That’s how I see it, and my opinion is shared by many of my grant-making colleagues. But, for reasons to do with the essentially capitalist nature of our country, it’s not one that has ever manifest in fully functional ways — i.e., the government has not ever thoroughly systematized accountability practices for foundations. Instead,  we impose accountability upon ourselves, and it’s really only in the last three or four decades that foundations have taken this responsibility as seriously as they ought. We could talk about this for a long, long time. It’s complicated and entirely human. But it’s important to me that you understand my perspective on this. I would say that accountability to the public, by which I do not mean grantees only, is my number one concern.

OK, all that said, every arts program officer that I know is looking at the entire arts and culture landscape when they devise strategies about how and where to put the money the manage. There is so much need. It can’t be met in one fell swoop. One of the problems, which you address, is that for living artists making excellent, innovative, viable new work (those who should be supported by MAP and the like), there aren’t enough programs. The people who fund and run MAP — Creative Capital, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (its officers and board of directors), and the Rockefeller Foundation (ditto) — have decided to spend $1 million a year to address that problem. It’s not nearly enough, and they are aware of that. As I mentioned above, we need AT LEAST 1.5 million to even begin to address the need, and even that leaves the best contemporary artists in the country with only about a quarter of their project budgets covered. (Big question here, by the way: Shouldn’t we be giving artists larger grants that cover a greater percentage of their overall budgets? Are we torturing them with these sums? I’ve talked to many, many artists who receive a MAP grant, and then have to spend their own money to realize the project (much greater than the size of the grant they got) because now they are obligated by the terms of the foundation to make something. And by the way, if I had been the only person deciding what to do with the 200K that DDCF was offering, it would have gone into increasing the size of our grant. Even at the cost of funding fewer artists! Hang me! Lucky for those who disagree with me I’m only one voice in this big conversation and I don’t get to dictate.) That roughly $1million dollars, not quite pocket change, is the amount these folks feel is right for this problem. My own view is that we should do more, but that we should not be the only one’s addressing the issue of new work. And, at this moment, we’re not the only but we are among precious few. I think other sources should be lobbied hard to diversify their arts giving, so that at least some of it is going to the risky business of funding new experimental or marginal work.

Creative Capital, MAP’s institutional home, which, as you know, has its own extremely robust grant program for individual artists, is tackling the problem by deeply immersing their grantees in a system of professional development that radically alters the way the artist sees her- or himself in the society. Giving them practical tools to change the system through their own actions. Personally, I think this is the most appropriate arts program out there — the only one that’s really addressing the problem at its root. Creative Capital should not be having to go it on its own. There should be thousands such organizations at the national level, in my opinion.

Anyway, my point is, there are many, many problems. How do we keep traditional cultures from going under? How do we repair the damage done to Native American culture? How do we ensure the next Balanchine doesn’t get beaten to death in a middle school in West Orange? How do we reinvigorate the creative instincts of our political leaders? It goes on.

To get to your concern about MAP, another problem we know about is that, because of the way our economy is structured, it’s nearly impossible for performing artists to gain career momentum in the same way a comparably gifted person in another (non-arts) discipline would almost certainly achieve. This is bizarre and tragic. And it’s entirely alien to the Capitalist principles that are drilled into our minds and bodies through rigorous habits of exchange since birth. What I mean is that, not only does the wildly successful artist suffer from this interruptus time and again, but he/she is demoralized by it because the lingua franca of exchange in our culture is that if you work hard, apply your skills, and achieve your goals (i.e. SELL OUT HOUSE) through your own spit, you will be rewarded by the momentum this success creates. That kind of success assumes demand. Demand is supposed to cause supply. If it doesn’t, something must be wrong with what you’re doing.

The equation in the arts, as we all know, is different. But our expectation remains the same. Success should breed success, and if it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with the “product.” This is deadly.

It is this confusion and demoralization, so apparent in our interviews with hundreds of artists, that was at the center of our conversations around how to expand MAP. (By the way, to be clear, the Doris Duke board of directors was not offering us 200K to do with what we pleased. They had just made an extremely affirmative nod to MAP by agreeing to 3 million dollars in 3-years for our core programming. This is their first involvement in MAP. It was already a huge statement. In addition to that, after reflecting on the results of our report, Ben Cameron requested the other 200k to begin a pilot program that might address the momentum issue.) Many of us felt that, among all the other arts and culture problems, this one really wasn’t being addressed by anywhere else in the field.  Artists are virtually never invited to “find reflective time” as Ben puts it. To see what comes. To fail. It seemed to us, in the end, that these issues were more dire to the overall landscape of the arts than adding another relatively modest amount to the existing MAP award amount.

It is an entirely debatable decision, but I hope this goes some way in revealing our perspective. A press release is a poor substitute for a conversation, so, again, I’m grateful for your note and I welcome any further thoughts you might have.

I’d also like to ask if I may share our exchange on the MAP Fund blog. I think it’s important, and, time permitting, maybe we could continue it there and ask others to chime in.

Thanks, Ivan.

Be well,
Moira

On 2/20/09 11:10 AM, “Ivan Talijancic” wrote:

Dear Moira,

First off, thank you for your well thought-out and detailed response. I have to admit, I got much more than I bargained for — in the best sense of the word! The points you are addressing in your note are hugely important. Difference in perspective aside — which +is+ necessary and unavoidable, and therefore it would be moot to question it — I would be hard pressed +not+ to agree with much of what you discussed below.

I would like to add a few points of my own, raising the perspective from this side of the conversation…or this side of the field.

You’ve made a good point about the issue of accountability when it comes to private foundations’ spending policies. It is indeed true that because private foundations enjoy fiscal privileges (i.e., tax deductibility) under our federal tax system under the premise of catering to charitable causes, one could say that the onus is on them to justify their charitable spending. It is encouraging that you take that responsibility seriously, regardless of the extent to which it is, arguably, open to interpretation. I am personally of the mind that private foundations — if they are truly serious about forwarding their mission, or, to put it in street language, “practicing what they preach” — have a responsibility towards their actual and potential constituency, that is, the field they choose to serve.

With that in mind, I would like to offer some thoughts. I should preface everything by saying that in commenting here, I am — at least for today — taking on a bit of a spokesperson role, not speaking just for myself. I am indeed surprised that a larger group of artists didn’t speak up — especially considering that over the past few years I have encountered a significant number of peers who have been very vocal about their frustrations not just with the funding situation at large, but with MAP specifically. I think it is not necessary to discuss the lack of funds that are made available to address the need… That much is clear. It is also important to acknowledge MAP’s uniqueness, though I don’t think it is the the only funder addressing the need of new, risky, innovative work. Here in New York, foundations such as Greenwall, and Jerome have been addressing — again, to the extent of their abilities — the need to support this kind of work. What +does+ make MAP unique, however, is that it makes the attempt to address that on a national level, and kudos are certainly due there for taking on such a formidable task. Over the years, I have had great many conversations with foundation officers (theirs being — as I imagine it is for most smaller, independent, non-institutional groups like WaxFactory — the main source of unearned income), and again, I would be hard pressed to think of a single foundation that felt like were doing enough, or had enough funds to go around to address the need. So, it does not come as surprise to hear that this is mirroring your feelings. And, I agree with you that there should be more funders and more funding addressing all the aforementioned points. But, for the purpose of this discussion, allow me to be very pragmatic, and assume (either pessimistically, or realistically, depending on the point of view) that things are going to remain as they are, that MAP’s funding is going to stay more or less level, and that it is going to remain the only national funder of innovative work in the foreseeable future. What could be done differently to better serve the artists who apply for support, and to serve a larger pool of artists over a certain period of time?

My input here is certainly a bit of a “cut and paste” of various conversations I had in recent years, so I certainly don’t want to take credit (or hit) for coming up with all of them myself. Again, if wishes were horses, there would be many more funders out there like MAP who are supporting diverse work across the US. That not being the case, it seems important for MAP itself to acknowledge the uniqueness of its position. Grant amounts could be larger, true — but I actually disagree that the current levels are inadequate. Frankly, I would find it a bit facetious — considering the larger funding picture in the US, and how competitive your grants are — that any MAP artist would find it appropriate to complain about the size of their grants. I would be hard pressed to think of a single US arts funder who is willing to take on the responsibility or underwriting all, or even the majority of costs of a performance — this is true even in the commercial production realm, so that much +less+ realistic of an expectation in non-profit waters. That being said, I would argue that you could serve the field much better by funding more artists over time. I feel that MAP would acknowledge its responsibility and uniqueness in terms of its national scope by diversifying more its pool of grantees. With funds available being what they are, i.e., rather limited — would it be more fair to support a larger number of qualified artists/project over, say, a 5 year period, rather than choosing to support the artist X with three or more grants over that same period of time, which has often been the case in MAP’s history? Again, reporting from the field, I can tell you that this, combined with the fact that MAP is one of the very few funders out there who have consistently been insistent on not disclosing its panel composition, has caused waves of criticism among many New York artists, raising suspicions of favoritism. I am not mentioning any of this with the intent of raising a polemic — insofar as listening to the chatter of your constituency, I hope that it may be informative and helpful in the future discussions on your side of the funding pond.

Just one more thought, before I sign off. I truly wish that concerns raised in the remarks you offered in your last emailed reached more ears, nationwide, particularly when it comes to the powers that be — those that indeed have the power to affect change. If it is indeed true, to quote NEA, that “a great nation deserves great art” — what are we doing to make that not just a flashy slogan but an actual fact of life? Only so much seems possible, as you said, in the particular brand of capitalism that characterizes this country’s society. Ours is, for all intents and purposes, still very much a fledgling culture. The melting pot that we are, it seems that we failed to turn that lack of homogeneity into an asset, but instead went for the “least common denominator” kind of cultural reductivism. Because we are such a young culture, it seems that we never really quite zeroed in on what “American” really means. And because American Dream formula has been applied over time to make something out of nothing, to then multiply and cash in wealth ad infinitum, the term “value” in the US has forever been associated with the dollar sign. We have adopted a very simple mindset: whatever generates cash is worth investing in. The arts — I should say the non-profit kind — are therefore by and large viewed as not worth investing in. It is enough to compare our arts funding philosophy with that of, say, France (though most developed countries on this planet could just as easily fill in this blank) to see just how devastatingly inadequate we truly are.

Thank you for your attention…and blog this away, with my blessings!

Yours,
I.

Hello MAP Friends,

We are working away at the application review. Thank you to all for your patience as we repaired our server and restored your proposals. If you haven’t done so, be sure to sign onto the application and double check that your materials are exactly as you’d intended to submit them. Email us if you find anything amiss. 

Not to bury the lead, but I’m writing with some big news. Today MAP announces a 3-year pilot program, underwritten by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, that will support individual artists who’ve received multiple MAP grants over a five-year period. The program was created in response to a wonderful report we commissioned that surveyed hundreds of grantees who spoke about MAP’s strengths and limitations. 

We’re thrilled and amazed to be able to respond to some of the issues raised with the support (and incredible alacrity) of the folks at DDCF. 

As ever, we’re all too aware that no one program reaches every deserving artists. There’s much work to be done toward expansion of support systems and greater responsiveness to the field. But we take this initial step with an eye toward learning and the intention of establishing more expansive, ongoing support in the future. 

Read the press release, and let us know what you think.

More soon,

Moira

Hello MAP Fund Friends,

I have to say, I’d expected our first ever MAP blog entry to be somewhat more triumphant than this one must be.

As you may be aware, on Tuesday Jan. 20, 2009, our deadline date among other historic milestones, we experienced a technological nightmare that sent many of our treasured applicants, not to mention my small, heroic staff, into a state of horror, panic and, briefly, depression. Essentially our server broke – the hardware that is – and caused a great many applications to revert to pre-submission states, losing information and eating up people’s valuable work and irretrievable time. While the high traffic volume didn’t help, it also was not the sole cause of the crash. In addition to the online application, which froze up entirely, our website and email went down. And for a short time, our phone was too jammed to accept messages. A perfect storm.

Basically, it’s not supposed to happen, but then again, airliners are not supposed to land in the Hudson River either. My point is, Mercury is in retrograde (just like our former president, although hopefully Mercury is coming back) and, indeed, these things do happen. In fact, “these things” are sometimes the stuff of art, as one of our beleaguered applicants reminded us in an email:

But quite seriously, we are earnestly sorry for the misery the situation caused. We strive to make your MAP experience pleasant, and we expect that to be the case for the remainder of the grant cycle and beyond.

The better news is that by Wednesday morning we were back up and running with an extended deadline (through today, Thursday 1/22/09 at 1pm ET). If for some reason you were not able to make that deadline or never received notification of your application’s status, please call or email us with details. We will get to everyone.

As of this writing, we’ve received just about 700 applications. That’s a good jump from last year, which was expected. It will take us a while to unpack and file.

We’ll be receiving work samples for the next few days:

Next up, we review all applications for eligibility and send materials to regional evaluators within the next two weeks.

We do not expect the deadline extension to impact any other dates for this year’s grant cycle.

About the blog: Welcome! We are looking for ways to create greater transparency and communication with the contemporary performance field – grantees, applicants and other interested parties. This is step one. We’ll post here on grant cycle activities, grantee projects we’re lucky enough to attend, conferences we go to that might be of interest to our community, and the work of our colleagues in other departments at Creative Capital. We’ll also invite guest bloggers from the field.

The world of arts funding is rich with conflict and hope and room for improvement. We expect this will be a space to discuss all of that. We invite you to respond to our posts and nominate thinkers you believe should be heard here. And we’ll see how sticky this thing really is.

Thanks and looking forward on all counts,
Moira