 Okay, I think this is, we have a good group of folks joining us today, so we will get started. Thank you so much. Good morning and welcome to NIFA's info session about the new arts here grant program. I am Adrienne Petrillo. I'm the senior program director for New England presenting and touring at NIFA. My pronouns are she, her. Before we begin today, I would like to start by acknowledging the land on which we are based. At the New England foundation for the arts, we believe that one of the roles of the arts is to make the invisible visible. We also believe that it is not the responsibility of those who have been made invisible to remind us that they are still here. Furthermore, as a committed ally and as artists, the New England foundation for the arts wishes to acknowledge that the ground on which NIFA is based is the traditional lands of the Massachusetts Wampanoag and Nipmuc people. We honor their ancestors past, present and future and recognize their continued existence and contributions to our society. This presentation does have many accessibility functions available to enable captions on your screen. Please select the captions setting in your zoom controls, which are likely on the bottom of your screen to access captions in languages other than English. You must be using a Windows or Apple computer with Zoom meeting client version 5.11.2 or higher. Language translation services are not available on mobile devices. I also want to thank our ASL interpreters today, Chelsea and Joanna. And also a big thank you to our friends at HowlRound who are live streaming this session today. Our next slide please. Today's webinar will offer an overview of the arts here program as well as a Q&A session. To ask a question in today's webinar, please use the Q&A button at the bottom of the zoom interface, which is located alongside your other zoom controls, likely on the bottom of your screen. We will answer questions either verbally throughout the presentation or at the end during the Q&A or through a written response in the chat. But please do ask your questions. That's why we're here today. So our agenda for today will cover the new arts here program. We will talk about what it is. We will talk about who it's for, the application process, the program details, and then we will finish with a question and answer session. What is arts here? That is probably a big question on many people's minds. So NIFA, New England Foundation for the Arts, is one of six regional arts organizations in the U.S. We are all nonprofit organizations, but we also partner regularly with the National Endowment for the Arts. And we are so happy to partner with the NEA and our fellow regional arts organizations on the launch of arts here. So this is a new program that comes from the NEA and all six regionals. Arts here is a capacity building project grant that supports the work of nonprofits in all U.S. states and jurisdictions. This program is also an opportunity for more Americans to experience artful lives in their communities. Arts here reflects goals and objectives identified in the National Endowment for the Arts 2022-26 strategic plan. These goals and objectives include supporting opportunities for all people to participate in the arts and arts education and integrating the arts with strategies that promote the well-being and resilience of people and communities. Arts here goals ensure that everyone has access to arts participation. It's also about promoting the well-being and resilience of people and communities and building the capacity and infrastructure of the arts sector. The intent of arts here is to strengthen the capacity of organizations that are already engaging with underserved groups and communities to boost arts participation and connect these organizations to each other and bolster their work together. In the long-term investments made through the arts here program will build grantee's capacity to sustain their meaningful community engagement and increase arts participation for underserved groups or communities. I will now pass it over to my colleague, Audrey Serafin, who will get into more of the specifics about arts here as well as the application process. Thank you. Thank you so much, Adrienne. My name is Audrey Serafin. I use she, her pronouns and I am the program manager for regional grants and initiatives here at NIFA and right now that really means all things arts here. So, to continue on what Adrienne was saying, there are three core components to arts here. The first of which is obviously investment. These are grants ranging from $65,000 to $130,000. And those are non-matching grants that don't have, so you don't have to secure funding to match these grants. They're, you know, just for you. There are also two other components that we find really exciting beyond your typical grant focus program. One of those is a learning component which will involve both regional and national cohort opportunities, including one-on-one coaching sessions, monthly cohort meetings, and quarterly workshops. Additionally, the NEA will be working to evaluate arts here outcomes and results to help determine the future of this pilot program and hopefully other programs like it that make substantial investment to community-based arts organizations. Next slide, please. But who is arts here for? So, arts here is not just for arts organizations, but it's for any organizations that present arts programming to underserved communities. We're also looking for arts organizations specifically non-profits who are committed to equity and are able to show that sustained commitment that aligns with arts here's values. Even though that these are quite large grants, we know that small organizations can responsibly steward large grants. So this arts here is also for organizations of all sizes who have a capacity-building project in mind that fits inside the arts here guidelines. Next slide, please. So what that looks like with eligibility is, as I mentioned, you do need a non-profit tax-exempt 501c3 status to apply, but federally recognized tribes and tribal communities are also welcome to apply. Non-federally recognized tribal communities that are non-profit and tax-exempt are also eligible to apply. Next slide, please. We did want to highlight some notable exceptions to eligibility that have come up as we've been talking in community about this program. Unfortunately, fiscally sponsored organizations or organizations working in partnership are not eligible to apply to arts here. You do need your own 501c3 and you can't apply with that partner organization. Colleges and universities are also not eligible for arts here funding. I know that it's a bit tough in New England where our world-class education institutions offer a lot of support to our arts community. But if you do have a separate 501c3 from your college or university, you would be eligible, but I know a lot of that is embedded, unfortunately, with colleges who often also have their own 501c3. K-12 schools, both private and public, are not eligible for this and neither are units of state or local government, given that this is a grant from the federal government. Next slide, please. So, the last couple points on eligibility are that each organization must have at least three years of arts or cultural programming experience. I also want to note that the grant that this is, since this is a project grant, it has performance period, which is between October 1st, 2024, and June 30th, 2026. We are also seeking capacity building projects to support with this grant that do have, as I mentioned earlier, a budget between $65,000 and $130,000 with no matching requirement there. Next, awesome. So what is a capacity building project? This is probably the most frequently asked question we get in our office hours. My colleagues say we'll be speaking in a moment, can verify. But a capacity building project is really anything that helps develop or strengthen the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast changing world for your team and your arts organization. So really any project that supports, sustains or strengthens the organization's ongoing and existing work with underserved communities can be considered a capacity building project. Now it's very broad and I know the guidelines don't give a lot of concrete examples because they're looking for people to be creative and really, you know, rise to this sort of new kind of grant with their own ideas. But if we go to the next slide, we have a couple examples. So there are, these are listed under some of the allowable costs in the arts here guidelines, but field research to help strengthen a deep and existing bonds and commitments with underserved communities, strategic planning or logic model development or implementation, marketing or promotional activities including rebranding or creative storytelling, succession or planning or leadership training, a needs assessment, whether for accessibility of physical structures or overall equity and accessibility of your organization, staff, EDI training and development all count as capacity building projects that arts here could fund. And of course at the end we will be getting to a question and answer segment so if you have more specific questions or is happy to answer those here or at another time. One thing I do want to note is that a capacity building project is not an arts project. For example, if you have a concert you feel will really speak to a historically underserved community sir, we wouldn't really count that as a capacity building project as it's a one off event and doesn't really promote sustained engagement with that community. However, if you wanted to research that community see how the music that your arts organization produces really speaks to them or perhaps doesn't work with the community directly maybe in a community advisory group to develop an ongoing series of programming directly with them. That process is something that arts here could fund. We're just encouraging folks not to apply with a specific production or event in mind just because it's not going to be as competitive next to a strategic plan, a succession plan, something that shows longer commitment and engagement, both to equity and to continuing the work of the organization itself. Next slide please. All right, so I'm going to hand it over to my colleagues say we'll talk a little bit more about deadlines and application process. Great. Thanks, Audrey. Hi, my name is Sage and you, I use she her pronouns and I am Nifa's program coordinator for regional initiatives. I'll be explaining more about the arts here application process which is in two parts. And part one is the statement of interest and applicants can apply by January 19 2024. For part two, the full application applicants from part one will be invited to apply. And the deadline is April 19. Lastly, grantees will be announced in August 2024. Next slide slide please. All right. So for part one, the statement of interest. There are three primary review criteria. The first is organizational capacity and the capacity building project that you propose in your statement of interest. The second is alignment with arts here's commitment to equity and finally engagement with historically underserved communities, which are arts here defines as race, race and ethnicity, socio economic status, disability and geography. And next slide please. So the statement of interest deadline is January 19 2024 by 1159pm Eastern time. Next slide please. All right. So to apply, we recommend folks visit arts here.org. All the information about the arts here program can be found on the website and we recommend you visit before you submit your statement of interest. On the website, you'll find the arts here guidelines, as well as more on expectations, the timeline and resources. And also on the arts here website, you can find the application platform called GoSmart to start and submit your statement of interest. Next slide please. So GoSmart. Once you're on the GoSmart website, here are a few tips. First, make sure you're applying in the correct region. Scroll down on the GoSmart website until you see this section for Neva and start your application there. Second, many of you have never used GoSmart before, but even if you haven't the past, you'll have to create a new account. The third tip is to not delay starting your profile and your application. Lastly, please save your application often so you don't lose any progress and hard work. And with that, I'll pass it back over to Audrey to go over support. I'm muted. Thank you so much say I really appreciate it. So as I mentioned, the statement of interest form is now open. So if you run into any technical issues as you work on your statement of interests that are quite specific, we do recommend you getting in touch with our friends at West Staff, which is the western most regional arts organization delivering this grant, including our technical services, their email arts here at GoSmart.org on the slide is the best way to get in touch with them. But any and all other questions, eligibility, native narrative, programmatic, please feel free to email arts here at neva.org, or give us a call directly at 617-867-1825. Sorry, I'm reading off a very small slide. Yeah, we also have some limited office hours available that you can locate on NIFA's website. But given that we only have a handful of slots and we are rapidly approaching the statement of interest deadline, we recommend you emailing or calling us instead. Now I believe if we go to the next section, the next slide, sorry, we are now available to take your questions. I believe you can only ask them through the Q&A feature. I don't see any yet, but say we'll let me know if I'm mistaken. I don't think we see any yet. Oh, there's a question here. Okay. So Audrey, the first question says, for organizations that currently do arts programming as part of general community building activities, how should the three years be tracked? For instance, we have youth programming that often includes an artistic component, but not as part of a directed arts curriculum. Similarly, we have a maker space that is sometimes used for artistic projects and sometimes used for entrepreneurship programming. Great. So, yeah, I'll address the tracking question here. So, you don't need to have the three years of program activity don't need to be consecutive. We acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted a lot of the great arts work that your organizations were doing. However, I think in terms of the arts component curriculum maker space, I believe, again, arts programming really just sort of speaks to providing any sort of arts or cultural programming to an underserved community. And I should mention that underserved communities for the purposes of this grant are not age specific. I see that you mentioned youth programming here. We do find that there's often ways that nonprofits are able to talk about their students beyond their age, whether that's through their race and ethnicity, their socioeconomic status, geographic location. And there are other, you know, of the specific underserved communities definition given by the NEA, there are other ways that many students fit in that category, but I would just like to point out that age alone isn't going to make that community underserved. I'm just reading Max Welles' follow-up. Programming is place-based and location fits the general criteria. Wonderful. So, yeah, if you have three years of arts programming experience with that population, regardless of what it is or if it's consecutive, you should be eligible to apply. Great. Thanks, Audrey. Our next question is if staffing is an eligible expense, such as hiring a staff member as part of capacity building. Yeah, great question. Thank you. So, yes, staffing is an eligible expense. In terms of hiring a new staff member, you would just need to illustrate in your statement of interest how it's part of your capacity building project. I suppose hiring staff, for example, some organizations have spoken about wanting to hire an executive director or, you know, a full-time staff physician where they may not have had one previously. That in and of itself could be a capacity building project, but more often usually increased staffing or staff time even would be an eligible expense as it pertains to the capacity building project, whether that's community engagement, marketing activities, field research. Also, lots of folks are applying to bring on consultants or sort of temporary advisors for their capacity building project, and those are eligible expenses as well. Any more questions from folks? Alright, here's our next question. Are arts service organizations eligible and do our programs like awards or grant programs account for arts programming? Yeah, so arts service organizations can be eligible. It really depends on the kind of programming that you're delivering. I will say awards and grants programs, this particular grant is not for re-granting. So if you're speaking about a financial award that's given to someone, that wouldn't be a good fit. But I do think that we have some arts service organizations who are applying looking to strengthen the capacity of their organization as it, you know, then goes on to serve the underserved populations, other arts organizations are working within the region. Great. Thanks, Audrey. Our next question is, they understand that one-off concerts are not eligible, but if you have a series that serves underserved communities that you would like to expand with that count? Yeah, great question. The answer is potentially, it sort of depends on the project. We've just been really encouraging folks to look at this as an opportunity to step back and really think about what your organization needs from an operational sustainability standpoint. We're encouraging folks not to apply with a series of events unless it really speaks to a larger initiative that will continue beyond the grant performance period. So while all eligible expenses have to fall within that October 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2026 timeframe, the impact of that work should be long lasting beyond that. At least that's the hope. Thanks, Audrey. All right. We have no questions at this moment. So take a second to see if any more questions come in. It's also okay if there are no questions. We do hope that this has been helpful for folks and do encourage you to reach out to us directly, particularly with specific questions if we have not been able to answer them to your satisfaction here. Audrey, we have a question that just came in. How many organizations do you expect will apply? That is a great question and one I cannot fully answer as this is a pilot program and there's really no precedent for an application like this before. We are anticipating a large number of applications. And we're anticipating those coming from organizations of all sizes, hopefully from all the New England states. But if I had to put a number on it, I would say in the low hundreds, maybe. Great. Thanks, Audrey. The next question is, what might the acceptance slash award rate be? Yeah, again, the math on that is pretty difficult. But we do expect this grant to be really competitive. Great. Our next question is, does each region have an equal number of slots to fill? This is a great question. So the grant awards, as mentioned on the national webinar, there will be about 95 potentially more awardees across the country. But in each region, those awards are being distributed by population size. So it may not be a surprise to any of you that NIFA is the smallest region population wise of represents the smallest region population wise. So, no, not each region has an equal number of slots to fill. There is some variance there given that we're serving a much smaller population size than some of our regional counterparts. Great. Someone is asking if you can talk a little bit more about definitions of programming for the past three years that we need to provide. And if those three years need to demonstrate dedicated work with communities that fit one or more of those four areas. Yeah. So, again, this particular statement of interest is pretty brief. And we have been getting some feedback that the character limits are pretty narrow. So, I don't believe you have to speak a little bit about your programming history and your history with these underserved communities. We don't want folks to be applying and not have any experience with these folks who are going to be served by the project. We are looking from some history of preexisting relationships. The three years of arts programming really just speaks to being active in community. And ideally with those, with your underserved community, which again doesn't need to fit into all four of those areas, but should be able to be defined by one of those sort of underserved community filters that I know is a question towards the end of the statement of interest. I'm trying to think if there's other definitions of programming is really just, you know, are you putting on, it depends on your organization, right? So, are you putting on concerts or lectures? Are you having active exhibitions in your gallery space? Are you a community center that offers classes or has done specific work to allow your space to be used by folks from different communities? Again, it sort of depends more on the organization. But arts programming just generally means years of activity, doing arts and cultural programming for the wider community, but ideally for the historically underserved community, you'll speak about in your statement of interest. Fantastic. Thanks, Audrey. Our next question is, do you see Grand Spring prioritized for rural areas? And likewise, would orgs in major cities not be prioritized? Great question. I do think, I don't see any prioritization on this sort of urban, rural divide. Again, I think we'll see grantees from both cities and remote areas. I think that more rural, I think we'll see different kinds of applications. I think that we'll have some rural grantees that can speak to providing arts access to folks who are, you know, geographically quite a distance from some other arts opportunities and more urban centers. But I don't see major cities not being prioritized, particularly given that those cities tend to be more racially and ethnically diverse. And that is another filter of sorts for underserved communities in this grant. Thank you. And we currently have no questions. So please feel free to throw them into the chat. Oh, all right. We have another one. The question says, we are fiscal sponsors to several groups that we work deeply in partnership with, giving fiscal sponsorship as a way to empower leaders and some of our underserved communities. It's an important service we provide. Is that a value to mention, or should we just not talk about fiscal-sponsored partnerships? Yeah, that's a little tricky. So I think in terms of, again, I think this question is coming from the arts service organization that asked some questions earlier. I think working in community with especially leaders from underserved communities is definitely important. But I think in terms of speaking to, it depends right on who your underserved community you're defining is, right? So if the underserved community you're defining is maybe BIPOC-led, BIPOC-serving arts organizations, and your fiscal sponsorship or a capacity building to support your fiscal sponsorship is part of, you know, your key argument and your statement of interest. I could definitely see talking about that being relevant, but I will mention that in terms of the statement of interest before the sort of part two application, it's pretty limited in terms of how much you can write. So really we're encouraging folks to be specific around their capacity building project and speaking directly to the programs and services that correlate with that project. Thank you, Audrey. We'll give another minute for any questions that might come in. All right. The next question is, do you need to give a timeline? Good question. I don't. I'm actually looking at guidelines experts say I don't believe so. I think that in part two there is some more detailed information, including, you know, a fuller project budget, as well as, you know, some evidence of you working towards a realistic process for this capacity building project if funded, but I don't think you need to give a specific timeline in part one. Our next question is, do you need to give an idea of what you would spend the money on in part one? Yeah, so definitely as I mentioned, there's not a specific project budget in part one, but you do need to give your total grant request amount. So we're encouraging folks to think about that full project budget, at least before you finish your statement of interest, because what we don't want to happen is, you know, obviously the instinct is to go for the most amount of money. So there's a lot of need in our community. But if you put in on part one for $130,000 project with really no thought of how that's going to be spent, and then you do move to part two, and you can really only find maybe $70,000 worth of expenses. So that's not going to be super good comparing that part one statement of interest to your final application. We do want those amounts to be pretty congruent. So you do need to have an idea, especially as you're talking about the capacity building project that's being funded. The line by line item expenses, but yes, you should have an idea of what you would spend the grant on in your part one statement of interest. Great. We have no open questions at this time. Anyone else has any questions? So throw into the Q&A. Please go ahead. I think I'll slowly bring us to a close. Again, leaving some space. I'm sure some people are maybe typing furiously, and I don't want to cut that off prematurely. But we thank everyone for joining us today, whether on the HowlAround livestream or directly here on Zoom in the webinar. As I mentioned, Sai and I are available at artshereatnefa.org. If you have additional questions or want to set up a time to chat further about your application, I, oh, we have another question. So I'll pause. Great. We have another question. If we want to hire a staff member to do more outreach and therefore more programs, is that okay? It involves arts programming. So, yeah, as I mentioned earlier, staffing can be an eligible expense. Again, it revolves around the capacity building project as a whole. So if your capacity building project is you're looking to increase support of your full-time staff, and that looks like adding a position and potentially some professional development or leadership training, then yeah, definitely include, in the end, you'll want to include those expenses of recruitment as well as starting the position. I will note too, in terms of sustainability, I would encourage you to think carefully around how you would continue to fund those positions beyond the grant performance timeline. Since the, since what we don't want is to set up some people to be brought on for this project and then let go when funding is lost, but I'm hoping that, I'm hoping that, you know, this will create some new career opportunities for some wonderful arts administrators. And those opportunities will continue beyond June 2026. Fantastic. Our next question is if you will send out the slides. People, it looks like people would like to see examples of what my count as capacity building. Yeah, absolutely. I think we can, I'll talk with our comms team, but whether it's via email or potentially posting these slides on the Arts Here, NIFA webpage itself, we can find a way to distribute those. I will say the examples of capacity building, I'm sure, I'm pretty sure are copy and pasted from the guidelines. So if you download those, that full PDF of guidelines on the Arts Here website, you should be able to see them there now if you don't want to wait for us to upload the slides. Great. Our next question is if number of staff should be stated for the overall organization or just for the sub program that someone is focusing on for their statement of interest. Awesome and very specific question. Yeah, the number of staff should be for the overall organization. I believe that our screeners will want to get a sense of the organization's capacity as a whole and how this project might be expanding that. You have no open questions. All right. I'm going to resume this, the slow closing. Unless something pops up, but I really do want to, again, thank our friends at howl around for live streaming this. Thank our friends and interpreter now for providing a cell interpretation. And I think my colleagues say and Adrian and and in the chat for their support around this program. We really do hope to see your statement of interest before midnight or 1159pm to be exact on Friday, January 19. You know our support info and including email and phone number are in the chat and available on Nifa's website. If you are seeking more information. Say also author to really helpful top 5 FAQ article on the Nifa blog you can take a look at. If you're looking for some more guidance there we talk about capacity building and writing as well as a couple other areas of frequent interest to our office hour attendees. And yeah, I think I think that is thanks for the link for that and that's awesome. I think that's all we wanted to share today so I will wish you a good rest of your day and hope to see you or, you know, your organization via statement of interest application really soon. Take care everybody.