ArtsForward Grants Program

Deadline: Monday, November 15, 2021, 5:30 p.m. (EST)

The application deadline has now passed.

Camera Crew at APAP|NYC by Adam Kissick/APAP

Purpose and Structure

Made possible with generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the APAP ArtsForward program will support the presenting and touring field’s safe and equitable reopening and recovery as presenters, artists and audiences reconnect, tours resume, and venues reopen.

More than $2 million will be given through direct grants of $35,000 or $50,000 to U.S.-based APAP presenter members working in partnership with individual artists/companies, to support the performing arts field’s transition toward reopening its venues and resuming live programming. Funds will be distributed by early 2022 for a grant period that takes place during the remainder of 2022. A priority, for APAP and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is supporting artists.

Application Requirements

Applications must:

Be cosigned and submitted by a presenter with an artist/ensemble.
Allocate at least 50% of grant funds to artist compensation and expenses (including as applicable, but not limited to agents, managers and/or producers/partners). Budgets can include presenters’ programming and COVID-related expenses that are necessary to complete and support the engagement.
Propose engagement projects that take place indoors or outdoors, or through a hybrid of locations. Projects can incorporate some virtual components but must involve in-person activity(s) with live performance elements. See below for the definition of engagement project and further information.
Commit to an equitable payment structure to artists, in phases, for the overall engagement project.

A Focus on Equity

ArtsForward encourages presenter-artist relationships built on equitable and transparent practices. The structure of ArtsForward is based on the work of APAP and other working groups to help presenters and artists reconnect, adapt, and evolve in a more equitable fashion. (Refer to Resources for information on these groups as well as the documents they produced.) In the wake of the pandemic, ArtsForward is influenced by calls for racial equity and fairer payment to artists, as well as to the agents, managers, and producers who help them build relationships and secure engagements.

Applicants are encouraged to follow some of the guidance provided by the APAP Equitable Partnership Working Group as well as the resources noted above. APAP released Building Ethical and Equitable Partnerships in the Performing Arts (BEEP), a guide to re-envisioning contracts between presenters and artists.
Applicants are encouraged to consider the spirit of APAP’s 10-20-30 Pledge to, over 10 years, dedicate 20% of their programming and 30% of their annual budgets to “artists and organizations who identify as and whose primary focus is from Black, Native/Indigenous, People of Color, women, individuals with disabilities, and LGBTQIA2S+ persons.” While APAP does not expect every grantee to focus entirely on groups identified in the 10-20-30 Pledge, we encourage applicants to reflect and model these values in their decisions about artists, activities, and budgets.

Eligibility

Applicants must:

Be a U.S.-based presenter, according to the definition below.
Be an APAP presenter member, in good standing, by November 9, 2021. (See below for important information about membership.) Proposed artists need not be members.
Have 501(c)3 tax-exempt status.
Be an independent nonprofit presenting organization, festival, university or college presenter, or an organization under the aegis of a larger non-profit entity (such as a museum).
Have an operating budget of less than $5 million for either calendar year 2020 or 2021.
Propose working with a U.S.-based artist.

Applicants are not eligible if any of the following apply:

Presenting organizations with budgets of more than $5 million/year for both calendar years 2020 and 2021.
Commercial for-profit entities.
Presenters that are not APAP members by the designated cutoff date of November 9, 2021. (See below.)
Artists or ensembles or their agent/management/producers applying as the Primary Applicant. (See below for definition of primary applicant.)
Academic departments of colleges or universities.

Applicants may be eligible, but are not competitive if any of the following apply:

Applications submitted by a presenter without the active involvement and awareness of the proposed artist.
Applications with agreements structured to pay artists only after their performance is completed (rather than agreements that include multiple payments tied to deliverables/milestones in an overall engagement).

Grant Amounts

Up to 50 grants will be made of $35,000 or $50,000, for a total allocation of more than $2 million.

Review Criteria

Applications will be reviewed on the following criteria:

Clarity of the nature of and rationale for the engagement project, including the match of its goals with proposed activities.
Clarity and strength of the relationship between presenter and artist, including how they selected each other and why they decided to work together.
Potential for the engagement project to serve as an example of equitable partnership for the field.
Clarity and commitment to fair compensation to artist ensembles, including fee level and comprehensive payment structure.
If relevant, match of engagement project to community(s) involved.

Compensation to Artists

The following requirements must be met:

At least 50% of the grant funds must go to the artist. These funds can include compensation to agents, managers, or producers for their role in booking, producing, or otherwise planning and supporting the engagement.
The artist must be paid for their overall engagement, including any virtual activities.
The compensation timeline and amounts must reflect mutually agreeable milestones, with payments reflecting the work or activities completed at the time of payment.
The artists must receive at least 50% of their funds in their first payment, which should be issued soon after the grant start date.
Contracts should address mutually agreeable arrangements regarding cancellation and force majeure. Ideally, for example, the proportion of the budget that goes to the artist and the presenter should not shift unless both agree to it.
It is assumed that both artists and presenters may incur extra costs related to COVID-19. Both parties should acknowledge these expenses and clarify how they will be covered.

Terms and Definitions

For purposes of this program, the following terms are used.

Artist. The individual artist or ensemble collaborating on the engagement project.
Artist Compensation. Funds paid to artists for the overall engagement project; can include costs paid to agents, managers, and producer partners as applicable.
Engagement Project. The arc of involvement between the presenter and artist (as well as their agent, manager, producer, or partners as applicable) and the activities planned or implemented during the course of the project. It can begin with initial conversations; involve planning and residency time; include travel and limited virtual activities; but must culminate in in-person activity(s) with performance elements. Activities might include presentation, community engagement, work-in-progress showings, or other purposes or activities that the presenter and artist wish to pursue. A component of the engagement, however, should be a live, public, or community-based element connecting artists and participants/attendees of the host presenter.
Payment Structure. Includes the overall agreement for compensating artists, including a payment schedule that reflects an initial or first payment to artist and subsequent payments to the artist tied to any deliverables. (Please refer to the Resources page for guides developed by the working groups named above, which provide guidance for equitable contracts, including language.) APAP’s Building Ethical and Equitable Partnerships in the Performing Arts document proposes that the arts field:
1. Adopt more equitable language in contracts.
2. Advocate for and model greater transparency around fees.
3. Consider alternatives to invoking force majeure
Presenting Organization. An organization that selects, engages, and pays artists to perform before an audience as an ongoing and significant component of their organization’s activity and that contracts, markets and accepts financial risk for an arts presentation that is not self-produced.
Primary Applicant. For the purposes of this application, the Primary Applicant is the presenting organization that is submitting the application.

APAP Membership Requirements

In order to apply, applicants must be APAP presenter members and also be a presenter according to the definition above. Applicants must begin the process of joining or renewing by Tuesday, November 9, 2021. The membership process can take several days, and those who have not become members by the deadline will not be able to apply. Now through June 2022, APAP allows you the option of joining with its “no barriers” membership.

To join or renew your membership, learn more here or contact Membership Director Sue Noseworthy at snoseworthy@apap365.org or 202.207.3841. If funded, membership must be maintained for the duration of the grant period (February 2022 through December 2022).

Timeline

Program Announcement: September 7, 2021
Guidelines Available: October 8, 2021
Application Live: October 8, 2021
Informational Webinars: October 13, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. (EDT) (replay on Zoom now available) and November 1, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. (EDT)
Applicants Confirm their APAP Membership Status: November 9, 2021
APPLICATION DUE: November 15, 2021, 5:30 p.m. (EST)
First Phase Notification: Approximately 100 applicants invited to continue/submit Additional Information: By December 20, 2021
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION DUE: January 19, 2022, 5:30 p.m. (EST)
Notification: Mid-February 2022
Grant Period: February 15 – December 31, 2022
Regular gatherings for grantees: (Attendance encouraged for those directly involved in the engagement project): March – December 2022
Funds distributed: As early as February 2022
Final reports due: December 2022
Grantee meeting, APAP Annual Conference: (One day during this timeframe. Attendance encouraged): January 13-17, 2023

Getting Help

Have a question? Here's where you can get help.

Informational Webinar(s). APAP will host two webinars to review the guidelines. The first took place on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 and you can replay it here on Zoom. The second takes place on Monday, November 1, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. (EDT). Register now.
Contact program consultants Suzanne Callahan (Senior Advisor) and April Gruber (Manager) at artsforward@apap365.org.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Please review these questions and answers for important guidance that might help strengthen your application.
Sign up for a 15-minute appointment with a program consultant here. Applicants must read the guidelines prior to their appointment.

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