Charlotte Street is excited to announce the second year of the Cultural Producer Grant Program, with $50,000 in total funds for low-budget grassroots arts organizations and artist-run projects in Kansas City. The funds are awarded as a $5,000 or $10,000 grant to 5 to 10 recipients. This program has been developed with significant contributions in thought leadership and funding from David Hughes, Jr. (Charlotte Street Foundation founder and former director), in partnership with Charlotte Street.
Kansas City has long enjoyed a thriving and diverse ecology of small artist-run spaces, collectives, groups, and organizations, which have sometimes suffered from the lack of support needed to establish sustainability. While each may be small, the collective impact in our arts community and our city has been enormous. Whether permanent or temporary, these groups nurture and grow artists creatively and become powerful community engines. Financial backing for these organizations often goes “under the radar” from larger institutional support. With the Cultural Producer Grants, Charlotte Street aims to build both capacity and funding viability for these critical elements of our arts ecosystem, positioning those small arts operations to successfully pursue funding relationships with larger foundations in the future. In the first year of the program, Charlotte Street received 54 applications and awarded seven grants.
2021 recipients include: (learn more Here)
- The Cecilia Series
- KC Zine Con
- La Resistencia Press
- Manheim Gardens
- NO Divide KC
- Poetry Club Collective
- Stray Cat Film Center
ABOUT THE CULTURAL PRODUCERS GRANT APPLICATION
GOALS:
- To encourage a rich, flourishing, and diverse ecosystem of arts and culture in Kansas City
- To contribute to the sustainability of low-budget artist-run organizations, collectives, groups, projects, and initiatives
- To provide support for small arts and culture grassroots organizations and artist-organizers building larger-scale projects that have an important impact on Kansas City’s arts and culture scene, despite smaller budgets and less access to capital
CRITERIA:
- Primary contacts for organizations must be an artist of any discipline, over 21 years of age, and cannot be currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program (BFA, MFA, or other)
- Organization or proposed project (if submitting as an individual) cannot have an annual operating budget over $50,000 or own assets worth over $50,000
- Open to artist-run initiatives and arts and culture operations located in the 5-county region of the Kansas City metro or fiscally sponsored artist collaboratives, collectives, or companies (can include art spaces, festivals, ongoing operations, or one-off events).
- Open to the following disciplines: Visual Art, Film, Dance, Theatre, Spoken Word/Performative Poetry, Multidisciplinary, New Media, New/Experimental Music, Social Practice, Arts Publications/Arts Writing, Conceptual or Social Design Projects.
- Not open to current Charlotte Street Foundation Startup Residents or Rocket Grantees who have not completed the final report.
- Funding requests are annual. Applicants can be funded for up to 2 years in a row but then must sit out a year before applying again.
- Applicants must have 24 months of operating history if applying as a collective, organization, or company. Unaffiliated artist-organizers pitching one-time events or projects must have a demonstrated history of prior organizing success via CV.
PROCESS:
Applicants prepare a concise, multipage PDF (up to 3 pages) that addresses the following areas:
- Project Narrative
- Mission
- Project or Program History (size, how long, employed or volunteer staff/contributors)
- Attach CV demonstrating prior history if individual artist-organizer
- DEI&A (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility)
- Partners and Collaborators
- Participating Artists
- Logistics
- Calendar
- Operating Budget (for the current year)
- Project Budget (if the request is for a specific project, rather than operating funds)
- Portfolio Documentation/Project Images
Application Deadline: March 14, 2022
PDFs are sent to [email protected] with the subject title “2022 CPG APPLICATION”
If you have questions about the application process, please email [email protected]
SELECTION PROCESS
- Eligible applications assessed by
- Risk
- Collaboration
- Openness
- Excellence
- Jurors review and rank priority for funding separately and submit ranking to Charlotte Street Awards and Programs Manager.
- 100% of funds will be awarded to organizations whose mission and leadership will positively impact the advancement of BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and/or Disabled communities, in recognition of the oppression of those communities in the art sector and the gap that has been created particularly in the Kansas City art scene.
- 5-10 grant recipients will receive grants of $5,000 or $10,000 as established by the jury. A total of $50,000 in grants is available in the granting pool for 2022.
- Awards and Programs Manager synthesizes data and ranks applications for one call to discuss applications and create a list of finalists for interviews.
- Finalists are given the opportunity to present in 20-minute interview/question-answer sessions with the jury panel.
- Jurors make final decisions about chosen applications and funding amounts.
- Applicants are notified of status on Tuesday, March 29, 2022
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $1.85 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects and has hosted countless exhibitions, performances, convenings, and conversations connecting and challenging Kansas City’s contemporary art ecosystem. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
ABOUT DAVID HUGHES, JR
David Hughes founded Charlotte Street in 1997 to support and encourage regional artists, their communities, and supporters after a corporate life in New York and KC. He stepped down in 2013 to allow younger and different voices to emerge, allowing him to travel more to see friends, art, and dance. He is currently splitting his time between KC and New York.
