[0:01] Welcome to the July 2nd opening video meetings.
[0:07] We are in Alison and Hannah. So Hannah 
[laughter] Alison and the dean. Thank you.
[0:21] So we'll go ahead and go chair for 
today. We'll go ahead and get started.  
[0:24] Um hopefully we had a chance to review the minutes 
from the [clears throat] April meeting. No,  
[0:32] May. Yep. Uh we did have a change from Callison. 
She pointed out that the time at the end was  
[0:38] wrong. That's been updated on the sheet in front 
of you. Um but that was her only correction.
[0:48] Any further changes? Let's pass 
upon Alice and when she gets seated
[1:05] action is out today. So as vice chair would 
you put pressure on her as um Sure. Oh yeah.
[1:28] Approve. I'll second. All in favor.
[1:41] Somebody else.
[1:45] Um. Okay.
[1:50] Item two is to discuss the 
activation grant changing.
[1:56] Um it's I mean it's yes I will happily 
take take this on. Um let me go grab  
[2:03] the copies that are sitting on the printer 
and pass some of them out. Um well we not  
[2:11] to put you on the spot George but we 
have a member of the public here. So  
[2:14] just wanted to acknowledge our our friend in 
the room. They don't usually get for public,  
[2:18] but we we have one today. Is the Law Art 
Museum has always former student of mine. So,  
[2:23] no pressure. Do you want to introduce yourself 
or your interest in this meeting today? Oh,  
[2:27] sure. I'm project manager art museum. I've been 
interested in council from afar. Um I've always  
[2:36] wanted to come and Molly has, you know, given me 
the freedom to come and I just wanted to know. Um  
[2:44] I've worked with children's theater. I work with 
Brown University and um I love everything about
[2:53] [laughter]
[2:57] for clarification sake. This is the cultural 
funding committee, not the arts council. If  
[3:03] that makes a difference to whether or not you're 
interested. [laughter] Okay. Just want to make  
[3:08] sure. Um oh she's like this doesn't sound um 
so uh yes I will happily uh chat through um the  
[3:21] uh grant opportunity. Um hopefully if you are 
new to us maybe you've had an opportunity to at  
[3:26] least look through the beginning of the packet. 
Um there haven't really been any changes made  
[3:33] uh to the application it or to the program itself. 
Uh this was more just to get some direction  
[3:40] uh from the committee, from new members of the 
committee to uh allow me to make changes over  
[3:50] the next month so that you guys can potentially 
approve the application in our August meeting.  
[3:56] Um because we will open this up in early September 
if I recall correctly. Uh so as we're finalizing,  
[4:04] we're figuring out the operational grants, we are 
accepting applications for the activation grants.  
[4:10] Um so the activation grant for those of you who 
are new to us is uh a a newish grant opportunity.  
[4:18] Um historically the uh city and the cultural 
funding committee awarded uh three types of  
[4:25] grants. The operational grants that you guys know 
about are learning about. Um we had one that we  
[4:31] called developing arts which was for very small 
uh organizations to help them build capacity in  
[4:37] various ways like through marketing um you know um 
uh finances uh just getting their their stuff in  
[4:45] order sort of stuff. That one was uh historically 
not uh organizations didn't apply to it very  
[4:53] often. It wasn't very popular. Um, and then our 
third type of grant was the artist access grant,  
[4:59] which was for professional development or capacity 
building, however you want to think about it,  
[5:03] for uh individual artists. And those awards were 
up to $1,000. And uh for several years it was uh  
[5:10] also not very well applied into um then we pushed 
really hard to make it uh well known that it was  
[5:18] happening and the numbers started to skyrocket. 
people really understood what was going on with  
[5:22] it, what our intent was, and um we got a lot of 
applicants and really had to uh work hard on it.
[5:32] I have to give a little bit more context. A 
couple years ago, we received from the NEA a  
[5:38] a grant money we received money grant uh to other 
organizations. So, in addition to the city's money  
[5:46] that we use, the federal government gave us money 
to subrant um cultural funding committee used  
[5:51] that money to create what we called the arts 
thrive grant opportunity. We gave out three  
[5:56] $25,000 grants with that money. Uh it was uh for 
projects so to make art grants to make art rather  
[6:05] than professional development. It was the first 
time we had done so. What year was that? that we  
[6:10] we accepted applications in 2024 and the projects 
generally were supposed to be done in 2025. Um,  
[6:16] one of them spilled over into 26 due to some 
scheduling issues, but uh that was our Babe  
[6:22] Arts Thrive grant. We awarded it in late 24 and 
the projects could be done in 25. Uh, it was a  
[6:30] really we had a really good um response to that. 
the committee, I think, really liked being able to  
[6:36] actually give grants to make art. And so part of 
that part of staff's internal discussion about how  
[6:42] do we start to give grants to make art? Um, and 
all of those things sort of led to the creation  
[6:49] of what we call the activation grant. And so 
the activation grant, please excuse me if it's  
[6:55] a little tiny bit complicated on first blush, 
but there are uh four things that can come out  
[7:03] of the activation grant. Two each for individuals 
and two for organizations, right? So you can if  
[7:09] you're an individual or an organization, you can 
apply for an activation grant. That application  
[7:15] can be for project funding to make art or it can 
be for capacity building professional development  
[7:22] funds. So if you if you gain that out there's 
four results that could happen. Individual  
[7:26] project individual professional development 
organizational project organizational project  
[7:31] professional development capacity building sort 
of thing. Does that make a little bit of sense?  
[7:36] Okay. Um so that's the if you look at your opport 
the opportunity those are our four categories. Um,  
[7:42] so we did this last year. We had a really great 
response to the activation grant. We gave out  
[7:49] um around $56,000 I think in grants. Um the the 
committee set aside a large amount of funding  
[7:58] for this project and it was and we used all 
of it. About I believe it was 17 recipients  
[8:04] overall received funding. Um and I would say that 
generally it was very successful. That was about  
[8:11] half of the applicants. Less than one. That was 
definitely less than half. I don't off the top  
[8:15] of my head. I'm not certain. I can look that 
up and look. It's okay. But so still is a very  
[8:20] competitive. Yes. Very competitive. Um, one other 
highlight to the activation grant opportunity, if  
[8:27] fund, if if organizations or individuals receive 
money from the city of Witchah in another way,  
[8:33] if they're legacy cultural institutions, if they 
receive operational grants, if they're employees  
[8:38] of the city, they cannot apply for an activation 
grant. So, we're trying to spread this to those  
[8:44] who don't already get money from the UN from the 
city. So when uh uh somebody from council asks,  
[8:52] "Well, why can't exploration place use this 
for the film their their film things?" Well,  
[8:59] we want this money to go toward organizations that 
don't already receive that support. And once you  
[9:06] receive it, as can you repeat? You can. We did 
add a little bit of a delay into it so that we  
[9:12] can spread it out, continue to spread it. Um, and 
that will we'll get back to that. I don't want to  
[9:21] overwhelm you with the nitty-gritty details. 
One slightly gritty detail and that was like  
[9:29] to carve out an opportunity for organizations 
that don't otherwise receive funding from the  
[9:35] city their ability to do so. So we had some uh 
some areas where we had friends of or foundations  
[9:45] for support agencies of city agencies applying for 
funding um to for operational funding for things  
[9:51] that the city already provided operational 
support for. So like Library Foundation and  
[9:55] Great Plains Nature Center are those kind of 
the major areas. Well, the library and Great  
[10:00] Plains Nature Center are both owned by the city 
and receive city funding. They have city staff.  
[10:05] They have secondary foundation group. They do 
incredible work, but then it was it felt like  
[10:10] it was a an awkward opportunity for them to also 
get additional operational funding from the city  
[10:16] in this other area. So now those entities can 
apply for competitive funding for projects.  
[10:21] So versus funding the library foundation for 
operations, they applied and received funding  
[10:26] for like the big read program. So that's the way 
we were able to accommodate for those shifts. So  
[10:31] there's a lot of apples and oranges that we're 
we're constantly trying to uh level an equity  
[10:37] lens in in terms of making sure that there's um 
a true competitive arena. So within that platform
[10:47] um other other things about the 
the activation grant, you know,  
[10:52] you have to serve the residences the the residents 
of the city of Witchah. I think that makes sense.  
[10:57] We like these projects to align with the cultural 
plan. So we we give several options for how they  
[11:04] can say that it aligns or they can pick their own 
option for how it aligns. Um we did set a limit a  
[11:12] request limit of $10,000. We got several people 
several applications that asked for $10,000. No  
[11:19] application received $10,000. Um the biggest one 
I think was $6,700 and that was to the library.  
[11:26] Um, and I believe they were the recipient of we 
have $700 left, let's give it to the library. So,  
[11:33] they sort of got the extra little bit on top. 
Um, and then the scope uh we don't it doesn't  
[11:40] matter how much of this money uh is a the project 
doesn't have to be fully funded by this money. It  
[11:47] doesn't have to be matched. So it can be from 
1% of the budget for the project to 100% of the  
[11:54] budget to the project, right? Um and then uh we 
do say that they can use a for-profit partner,  
[12:03] but the applicant has to be an individual 
or a nonprofit. So if somebody wants to  
[12:09] do a show and they're a nonprofit now, but 
let's just say they want to do it at Roxy's,  
[12:14] like they're allowed to do it at Roxy's. Um, 
but Roxy's can't apply for the grant. Now,  
[12:19] Roxy's can now because they're a 501c3. That's not 
a great example, but I'm just it's a hypothetical,  
[12:24] right? Um, so, but it's we're not trying to 
give funds directly to for-profit. You know,  
[12:34] I obviously every individual artist should be for 
profofit, right? Even though they're probably not  
[12:40] in some way, right? But uh for organizations, 
we're trying to limit the amount that we're well  
[12:47] just can't give it directly to the for um and 
then very briefly the calendar. So like I said,  
[12:53] early September, this is page three. They're not 
numbered. I apologize. Um uh early September,  
[12:59] they'll open. And then uh we all voted, well, 
you all voted earlier this year. And when I  
[13:04] say you all, half of you, the other half weren't 
here, right? uh voted to uh uh discuss these on  
[13:14] November 19th, which one day was enough last year 
to get through this. It was a lot it was a longer  
[13:20] meeting, but it was enough time. Um so just 
letting you all know that's why we're talking  
[13:27] about it now because I need to have time to 
adjust things and then what we launch uh in early  
[13:33] September. So on the updated December as a board 
date on here. I have not updated the calendar in  
[13:43] this packet. Okay. Just to let you know. Sorry. 
Okay. Um you can see on your agenda the November  
[13:52] 19th date at the very bottom. Deliberate and 
finalize activation grant recommendations.
[14:03] It's 3 or 5 gas station that day. We 
didn't get done early but I don't know any
[14:15] few people.
[14:19] I mean, you're saying that we started