May 20, 2024 • 30 mins
Did you know there are grants that might be able to fund your passion project or business? Special guest Ernise Cummings, is an expert in hunting for grants for creatives. This episode explains the unknown opportunities of funding your dreams in the creative field, guiding you through the complex maze of the grant application process.
Ernise provides a detailed exploration of resources like grants.gov and discusses how local establishments, such as libraries and museums, can become funding sources. She delves into the significance of proposals involving local communities and the impact this can have on a successful grant application.
A key focus in this episode is the vast number of resources like SCORE, a non-profit organization under the Small Business Association, that offers free mentorship to help secure funding. It further elaborates how the site can be used effectively and encourages budding entrepreneurs to connect with industry mentors.
The importance of being yourself when applying for grants is also discussed while emphasizing the value of asking why your grant application was rejected and converting this into a learning experience. Hiring a grant writer and their advantages and disadvantages are also intricately covered in this episode.
The episode concludes by discussing other funding alternatives to grants like pitch, state funding, endowments and even running your own fundraising campaign. The episode emphasizes the importance of self-belief, preparation, persistence, and resilience on the path to achieving entrepreneurial success.
Ernise Facebook Group: https://m.facebook.com/groups/secretmiraclesinc/
Free Grant Mentorship: https://www.score.org
The Success Palette: https://www.thesuccesspalette.com
Sponsored by Women Into Networking: https://www.wincommunity.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, hello, everyone. You are listening to The Success Palette,
a place to discuss everything that you are not taught in school about how to
be successful in the arts.
I'm your host, Soda, and today I have Ernise Cummings to talk about grants specifically
for creatives, artists, writers, entrepreneurs.
(00:21):
Podcasters, and how we can find that funding because it It is very difficult
to find ways to fulfill these dreams that a lot of us have.
But first of all, Ernise, do you want to talk a little bit about your experience with grants?
I know you've been working with helping people find grants for a long time.
(00:43):
Well, let's just say it's been a minute and it depends on what you'll feel, whatever you're in.
You know, like you say, right now, this podcast is about artists and stuff like
that. So for me, what I do is I just go out and search.
You know, there's a website called grants.gov, right?
And a lot of people think that it applies specifically for people who work for
(01:09):
the government or who have contracts for the government. But it's not.
It's for anyone that has a project that they believe would help the economic
of this world and overseas.
You know, some people forget to even look into that. I'll give you an example.
Like just last month, I was looking for a grant for this individual who do educational.
(01:35):
And there was a grant up there looking for a company that can provide after school care.
And I think it was like in India somewhere.
And they had to come up with the curriculum, you know, and it could it could
be virtual. It could have been in person, which I thought was amazing.
So, you know, just little discoveries like that. So once again,
(01:57):
it's grant.gov and you just go up there and instructions on how to utilize their
website, you know, how to look for different types of grants.
And you don't have to be the grant, the grant recipient yourself.
Yourself, you can have other companies that work with you in a partnership.
What they look for is small businesses because that is my world.
(02:19):
I am a SCORE mentor for the SBA on the SCORE, and we help small businesses get
their businesses off the ground.
We also help mature small businesses if they're running into a challenge.
We also work with them to try to locate grants. We also work with them to try
to find federal government contracts.
(02:40):
So in that particular arena, speaking of grants, the Smithsonian,
I don't know if you guys ever thought about that, but the Smithsonian sometimes
have grants looking for artists.
You have to look at the museums. You know, and Soda, I think you and I talked
about that when we first had our conversation.
There are millions and millions of museums that are operated by the government. Think about that.
(03:05):
They have grants that they give out to new artists.
And I can't remember what website we went on, Soda, but remember we found that
they were giving money to some artists for particular projects.
So when we talk about grants, grants is not specifically or just coming from the government.
Grants come from all sources, you know, in your city, in your state,
(03:28):
you know, in your county.
You know, specifically if you focus on libraries, museums, and you know how
many libraries and museums in your local state?
You might be surprised, you know, and I tell people to reach out.
To the individuals who manage, because no one owns the library or owns a museum,
(03:50):
but reach out to who manages those institutions and find out what type of art
projects that they have coming up.
And, you know, if there's grant money associated to that.
So hopefully I've answered the first question so we can move on to the next.
Yeah, because so many people, you think grants, oh, that's just U.S.,
(04:10):
you know, it's straight from the government.
So if you're not doing something specifically for the government,
there's no point in applying.
But there's a lot of stuff out there for, you know, even like musicians,
podcasters, people who, you know, and there's these companies,
I remember you were showing me these companies that really wants to help these creatives succeed.
(04:33):
And I'd love to hear more. So you talked about grants.gov.
I know that there's a lot of websites like
hello alice i don't really go to
that one too much because i'm not sure if they're
real granted so i never
dealt with that because i've had people say they apply they never hear anything
(04:54):
so my advice like i said earlier you have to reach your local sources first
because if you are a taxpayer in any state that deal with grants,
okay, for,
like I said, the library, the museums, the high school, the elementary school, they are programs.
(05:18):
It will be easier for you to get a grant from them because they have them.
You know, a lot of people want to go online and look at all these different
sites and apply and apply and they don't hear anything.
I say, start with your local community, you know, go to your local city hall
and go to the media people in there or whatever and ask them, hey,
(05:40):
who do I talk to about seeing what type of grants are available in my state, in my city?
And like I said, you'd be surprised that there is funding because the arts,
you know, what STEM is, right? Now it's STEAM.
It's society, technology, arts, and math.
(06:01):
Remember? They changed it. So if STEM turned into STEAM, then the A would be
where the artists and the musicians fall under.
So there are programs. Matter of fact, I just read an article last week where
I can't remember who composer is, But he started a program at one of the high
(06:22):
schools so that the kids can learn how to play specific instruments.
And they did that with a grant.
So any individual that's listening to this podcast, you know,
they can insert themselves in the high schools, in the elementary schools,
offer, you know, just say you want to offer some type of program for the kids
and ask them, do they have funding to support something like that? A lot of times they do.
(06:48):
And the other thing is that California, I just saw on 60 Minutes about two weeks ago,
California just implemented repairing of instruments and they got a massive
grant for that because a lot of kids, parents cannot afford to buy them a new instrument.
Instrument so the state of california just put
(07:10):
a they just got
a big grant a big donation i can't
remember which one it was but now they're going to repair
you know like broken instruments and be able to give them to the kids like new
so they can learn to play an instrument so grants.gov is one place let's go
through the steps grants.gov check box one go to your local state and ask what type
(07:37):
of grants or other funding opportunity that they have for artists.
Then go to your local city.
I live in Georgia. We have counties. I don't know if some people have boroughs,
you know, go to those people and ask them, Hey, you know, do you have any funding
grants, free money for artists?
You know, because if you, if you are a painter, you know, a lot of the local
(08:01):
painters us in Georgia, they exhibit their work all over Georgia. I mean, in our airport.
And the question is, how do these people do that? They get out.
You have to go out and talk to people.
Sitting at your computer and looking for grants is fine, but you have to connect
with the local artists and talk to those individuals, especially,
(08:23):
like I said, the museum and the libraries and say, where is grant money?
Your librarian is your best friend.
Because they know everything about everything because it's their job.
So check with your local librarian and ask, you know, are there,
do you know of any grants, you know, that are for artists?
Yeah, that's something that I definitely need to do. I live like three doors
(08:45):
down from a library and I just need to get over my shyness, my introversion.
But I know that, you know, I can't keep making excuses of not going for these
grants, these opportunities, just because I'm shy.
And what are some common mistakes that creatives make when applying for grants? They don't tell a story.
(09:12):
Story. Okay. So how important is storytelling?
That is very important. You know, I'm going to start with A.
A, you have to tell the story because the individual who's reading what you're
submitting, they don't know you from the next person.
So your story has to be convincing.
It has to show why would they give you this money for you to do whatever you're asking to do.
(09:38):
And the only way that they're going to know who you are, what your mission is,
what the outcome is going to be, is to list, to read your story.
And a lot of the information that a grantor would ask is basic stuff.
What are you going to do with this grant money? And if you say,
oh, I'm going to buy some awesome paintings.
(10:00):
You know, I'm going to paint a couple of paintings. They're like,
eh, people do that all the time.
But if you say, well, I'm going to go to the low-income schools and I'm going
to set up a program for the young kids to teach them how to paint and how to
do this, they'll be like, oh, you see the difference?
So you have to always talk your story where it's going to benefit others.
(10:22):
Granteurs' job is to give money to individual companies, individuals or companies
or nonprofits, whatever you may be, to help others.
That's what they want to know. Then they also want to know your stability because
if they give you $50,000 in grants, they have to be sure that you know how to
manage the $50,000 and you're not going to go out there and buy you a new car.
(10:46):
So that's another area where individuals who apply for grants do not explain
themselves thoroughly.
You have to have a budget. So kind of like a business plan type thing?
I would say a mini business plan. Okay. So you draft out kind of a mini business
plan for the grant when applying in addition to, and with that business plan,
(11:09):
you kind of tell the story of both why it's important to you and how it can help the society.
Right. And here's the thing, the grant application is going to tell you what they want to know.
And if they say submit three pages, do not submit five, because they're not
going to read the other two. Don't tell me.
(11:30):
They're just going to read what they want on the front end. Yeah,
so that's probably another big mistake that artists make is not exactly following
the rules that the application needs.
And my third thing, my third thing I want to jump in there, you have to be personal.
You have to write your grant responses as if you are talking to an individual because you are.
(11:55):
That's very important. It's like this podcast, you know, you talking to me,
I'm talking to you, but we have an audience.
Same thing when you respond to a grant. Can you give an example of how we can,
when we're writing our grants, how we can make it more personal versus generic? Yeah, sure.
So if I'm applying for a grant to open up an after school care program,
(12:21):
what I would do is talk about why that's important to me, not generally why
people need why people need after school care program.
I would make it heartfelt.
You know, for me, I need an afterschool program because, you know,
and I think it would help others because I'm a single parent,
you know, and I work long hours,
(12:44):
you know, and it would benefit my child if they had somewhere to go and,
you know, be creative after school, be able to intermingle with other children,
blah, blah, blah, instead of saying, well, you know, I would like to get a grant
to open up an after school care program,
you know, so that, you know, I could be able to, I can do that.
You talk about why it's important to you and why it's going to be helpful to
(13:08):
others in the same situation.
And that's just a mini version, you know, of what I think, how you can tell
the difference. And I think honestly, when it comes to arts or creativity,
so much of it, the benefit is to help society.
I know you helped me kind of figure out because with this podcast,
(13:29):
I'm like, how do I use this podcast to help my, my society and you helped me
really think about why I started it.
I started it because I didn't have the tools that I needed when I was in high
school and college to start my own creative business.
I didn't have any of that information. I had to learn it all on my own.
(13:53):
And I want to have that information for others.
And then you suggested maybe making a workbook for high school kids who kind
of want to go that direction.
Now that's helping me fulfilling my journey of learning everything that needs to be done.
Making my entrepreneur, creative entrepreneur business, getting funding,
(14:17):
but it is also helping, you know, high school kids or any adults who want to learn about it.
So I think in general, just having that bigger picture, understanding our why.
And if we are struggling with figuring out our why and how we can help society,
what are some ways that we can think of something like that?
(14:42):
Is there people like you that we could reach out to?
I know you mentioned you did stuff with the SBA.
Can you talk about what the SBA is and how we could find it?
Sure, sure, sure. The SBA means Small Business Administration.
And it's a regulatory organization that was developed by the federal government.
(15:03):
And it is funded by the federal government. And the purpose of the SBA is to
help small businesses to achieve their goals as a small business.
The SBA have different categories of preference, which is woman-owned,
small disadvantage, veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, HUBZone.
(15:25):
Those are the distinct socioeconomic groups under the federal sector of the
government that have preference. So you might say, what is preference?
It means that if you are applying for a contract or a grant and it's set aside
for a small business, you would get first preference over a large business.
(15:46):
So under the umbrella of SBA, there's an organization called SCORE, S-C-O-R-E in all caps.
So if you were to go to SCORE.org.
And you open up that website, it's a plethora of information up there. It's all free.
They connect you with a mentor. So if you went up there today,
Soda, and you went up there to score.org and you clicked on find a mentor,
(16:11):
they're going to ask you some questions about yourself, whatever you live in
and why you need a mentor.
And once you hit submit, if you say I need a mentor in the artist,
I mean, in the artist world,
you know, in the music world, and you hit submit, they will reach back out to
you with a mentor that understand what you are trying to do in your area of
(16:31):
expertise, which is artists.
And then that mentor sit down with you, you become buddy, buddy,
you can talk to them, you know, every week, if you want, it's what you guys set up.
And they walk you through every phase of what you need to know.
And I could repeat again, I always tell people it's free. You realize it, it is free.
Yeah, we a lot of people don't realize how many free resources there are.
(16:55):
And the arts, they go, oh, it's too competitive. It's too unlikely that I'm going to get anything.
How can we, and it is competitive. What are some ways in addition to having
a good story and following the rules,
what are some ways that we can stand out to make our project,
(17:15):
whatever it is, desirable for people to fund? I just tell people, be yourself.
There's only one of you. So regardless
if there's a lot of other people competing, there's only one of you.
And if you tell your story and talk about you and you're passionate about it.
And you drive the point home why you need the grant and you follow and answer all the questions.
(17:38):
A lot of people don't answer all the questions and the application get rejected.
You have to answer all the questions up until the end and submit what they ask you to submit.
And a lot of people fail to follow up. You know, a lot of people will apply
for grants and they never, ever go to that contact that's on there and say,
why didn't I get the grant? grant. Because, you know, if you get a letter,
(17:59):
say, well, we're sorry, thank you for applying.
However, you know, the grant will reach out to that person and say, what did I not submit?
Why didn't I get the grant? And you learn from the negative to make it a positive.
Yeah, asking that feedback. That's cool that they are even willing to do that.
I know that there are options to hire someone to write the grant for you.
(18:23):
How useful do you think that is? Is it worth the money?
I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on that. I'm positive and negative on
that because I don't think anybody can talk about themselves but yourself.
Because everything that the grant writer needs, you have to feed it to that individual.
And I know the grant writers that I've met, they're very costly.
(18:47):
So if you have deep pockets to throw it in the wind and if that's what you want
to do, then go forward. Because think about it, a grant writer does not guarantee
you're going to get the grant.
So once again, at SCORE.org, they have classes on how to write grants.
(19:08):
Go up there and in the search box, say how to obtain grants.
OK, on SCORE.org. And there's a whole bunch of classes up there,
which once again is free.
Or you can ask for a mentor to help you learn how to write your own grants.
Because like I said, no one can talk about yourself and your company or your work but you.
(19:30):
Grant writers are fine, but they are costly, very costly.
Because think about it. That's all they do. That is their job.
They are earning a living off of writing grants for you.
My intent is to apply for my own grants. I had somebody write me a grant package,
but the individual knows me.
If she didn't know me, that package costs $2,000. And a lot of these,
(19:52):
there's no guarantee that you're going to get that grant.
So you could be spending a lot of money, especially if it's a smaller grant.
I mean, I know that the grant that I am wanting to go for, it's like between
$50,000 and $80,000 or something because it's a pretty big project.
But if it's something small, there's definitely, you don't want to. Right, right.
(20:17):
And I think if you, I can't think of the name of the website,
but there are professional websites out there that will give you information
on, you know, how to complete your grant.
But like I said, my best resource is score.org.
For real, that's the best I can give you because it's free.
(20:38):
And there's a lot of information up there. I think it's Candid.
I think it's C-A-N-D-I-D.
I think that's the organization where they have classes on how to write grants and stuff like that.
But you can ask AI how to write a good grant now.
But the key to a good grant to you, Soda, and anybody listening is to tell your
(21:00):
story, follow the directions, make sure you respond to every question,
and make sure you submit what they're asking you to submit.
And if you don't get the grant, do a follow-up, a feedback to know why you didn't get the grant.
I know you mentioned SCORE before to me, but I haven't done it yet because I
(21:22):
think that my biggest thing that's holding me back is feeling like I don't have enough credentials.
I don't have, I'm not making enough money already for my business.
It has nothing to do with it.
It has zero to do with the work. Even if it's something,
so for example, the thing that I'm working on making the handbook about entrepreneurship,
(21:45):
is there how much like experience do you need to be already making money?
Does your business need to be set up with an LLC?
Zero. If you're just thinking about opening a business, reach out to SCORE.
They will tell you what you need to do to open a business. It doesn't matter
if you're doing a dog walking business.
(22:06):
It really doesn't. They have mentors in every field you could have possibly imagined.
So once again. That is so good to know. Yeah. I can't say that enough. I can't say that enough.
SCORE.org, you know. And I will have that in the show notes below,
the score.org, because that sounds like an amazing, amazing site.
(22:30):
Okay. You know Sarah, right? Yes. Okay.
Sarah reached out to SCORE, her and her brother, and they have a whole building
of mentors, and she's so excited.
So just check with Sarah. She will validate what I'm saying.
I think I got the naysayers stuck in my head, like, oh, you can't get a grant.
You don't have, you're not established enough.
(22:51):
You don't have the experience. And so I've been very reluctant.
So now you got me having more confidence about that. So I really appreciate that.
And I tell people who goes for and you get a mentor, that's what I call a deadbeat.
And you're not risking anything.
No, you're not. It's free. Right. And you're going to find out that you're going
(23:15):
to find out more information that you could imagine.
And so if you aren't able to get a grant, there's no grants that work for you
or the ones that you do, your application gets rejected.
Are there any other sort of places where you can go to try to get funding,
whether crowdsourcing or companies or anything?
(23:38):
Your state, your city, your borough, whatever those other little things they
call inside of the state.
You know, you can go to those because they have funding.
You know, I found out something interesting about a week ago.
You know, the coaches for the kids at school, I thought they were salaried.
(24:01):
They get stifled. I was shocked.
They don't get stifled. They're stifled. So maybe these schools and these libraries,
you know, maybe they have stifles where, you know, they say we have,
you know, $2,500 looking for somebody to do this.
Or a hundred thousand, it might not come in the form of a grant.
It might come in the form of an investor. You have people that invest in different
(24:26):
portions of the schools, you know, whether it's public or private,
you know, they have endowment, you know, people leave money.
So there, there's a lot of other resources out there besides grants that can fund your programs.
So I will say once Once again, if you go to SCORE.org, ask the pertinent questions.
(24:47):
Well, if you can't help me with grants, do you know how else I can get funding for what I'm doing?
Your local librarian is your best friend. I can't say that enough.
You know, they should know all the other sources outside of just getting a grant.
Because art is very needed. And if they change STEM to STEAM,
(25:10):
I mean, there has to be a reason why they put the arts back in it.
Might have to do a little research, but I think everybody, you know,
myself, you or anybody listening to this podcast will find the answer.
You just have to figure out where you want to implement yourself in the process.
(25:30):
You know, it's not always about grants. You know, you can go up there and do
your own campaign for funding.
If your project is something that's needed in your community,
I tell people, start in your own community.
Get to know your local council people. Go talk to them. Let them know what you're
trying to do in the community.
(25:52):
They will give you the answers. And it's not always grants, but there are other
types of funding out there.
I wish people talked about this so much more often.
And that's why I'm really glad you were willing to come on to talk about this
because so many people don't realize how many opportunities they focus so much
on sponsorships of getting these big companies to pay for ads or things like that.
(26:18):
But there's so many more options. So I really, really, really appreciate that.
And I'd love to hear if there are any final thoughts before we end on people
who might be struggling to feel that confidence to apply for these grants or
feel that maybe their project might not be worth it.
(26:38):
Well, this is my closure. I use that. My closure is this. You first believe in yourself.
Got to first believe in yourself. Every door you knock on is not going to be a yes.
But there will be some doors you knock on that will be a yes.
And you have to be prepared when that individual say, of course, I'll support you.
(26:59):
That is not the time for you to run back home and try to get it together.
You have to have it together before you knock on the door, which I do a lot
of teaching that in my mentoring to entrepreneurs, okay, who's in every field that I'm familiar with.
I make sure that my mentees are prepared before they go knock on the door.
(27:21):
Because once you get the, how can I help you?
You have to be able to spill it out of your mouth, talk about your project,
be confident in your own project.
Because if you can't regurgitate who you are, what are you trying to offer somebody?
How is it going to help somebody? And why do they need to give you money?
It's no sense of knocking on those doors or even filling out grants.
(27:44):
Am. So my number one thing is have confidence in yourself.
My number two thing is be prepared when you go out and start talking to people
about your event or your project or whatever you're doing.
And number three is it's going to happen.
It's going to happen. You have to have faith and believe that what you're doing
is positive and somebody needed.
(28:07):
And finally, you know somebody needed. There are millions of schools out here.
There are millions of museums.
There are millions in the libraries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So narrow it down to where do you want your artistic abilities to be and how
far are you willing to put yourself out there and talk about your project?
You know, they say the people who get noticed is the people who make the most noise.
(28:33):
And that's a true statement. If you don't make a lot of noise about yourself
and about your project, who's going to know?
Yeah. And that could be hard to do. Sometimes you're like, oh, I feel annoying.
But I mean, that's the only way it's going to be done. So I really needed to hear that.
But check this out. Here's another way. You have a lot of shy people in the world.
(28:53):
Get somebody else to be your mouthpiece. You get somebody else to get something for you.
Yeah. I love that. Because I know for me, I could talk so much about how great
someone else's project is, but I have a hard time talking about my own.
So maybe even swapping with someone who likes your project, you like their project,
(29:15):
and you could talk about each other's project. That's right.
I love that. You only need the voice out there.
And that voice has to be knowledgeable. okay i mean
you have a lot of famous people or
people that they get in front of the camera they
have spokesmen try that angle i'm gonna
(29:36):
try that i'm gonna try it but thanks so much
again ernest i even even though we've talked before i still needed everything
that you said today so i really appreciate it and i know you're super busy so
i will let you go but i will make Make sure to have any links that you want to send me.
(29:57):
I know you've sent me some before, so I'm going to make sure to have those in the show notes.
Any of your personal links that you want people to be able to have,
I will definitely add those in.
Okay. I will text you and send it to you, and then you can put them in the bottom.
But the biggest one is at score.org. Yes.
(30:18):
Thanks again for joining me on this week's episode of The Success Palette.
For information on social media links where you can request any specific episode
that might help you in your creative journey, and also information on how to
watch some bonus episodes,
you can go to thesuccesspalette.com.
(30:41):
And let's work together to make sure this week is a successful one.
Hello, hello, everyone. You are listening to The Success Palette,
a place to discuss everything that you are not taught in school about how to
be successful in the arts.
I'm your host, Soda, and today I have Ernise Cummings to talk about grants specifically
for creatives, artists, writers, entrepreneurs.
(00:21):
Podcasters, and how we can find that funding because it It is very difficult
to find ways to fulfill these dreams that a lot of us have.
But first of all, Ernise, do you want to talk a little bit about your experience with grants?
I know you've been working with helping people find grants for a long time.
(00:43):
Well, let's just say it's been a minute and it depends on what you'll feel, whatever you're in.
You know, like you say, right now, this podcast is about artists and stuff like
that. So for me, what I do is I just go out and search.
You know, there's a website called grants.gov, right?
And a lot of people think that it applies specifically for people who work for
(01:09):
the government or who have contracts for the government. But it's not.
It's for anyone that has a project that they believe would help the economic
of this world and overseas.
You know, some people forget to even look into that. I'll give you an example.
Like just last month, I was looking for a grant for this individual who do educational.
(01:35):
And there was a grant up there looking for a company that can provide after school care.
And I think it was like in India somewhere.
And they had to come up with the curriculum, you know, and it could it could
be virtual. It could have been in person, which I thought was amazing.
So, you know, just little discoveries like that. So once again,
(01:57):
it's grant.gov and you just go up there and instructions on how to utilize their
website, you know, how to look for different types of grants.
And you don't have to be the grant, the grant recipient yourself.
Yourself, you can have other companies that work with you in a partnership.
What they look for is small businesses because that is my world.
(02:19):
I am a SCORE mentor for the SBA on the SCORE, and we help small businesses get
their businesses off the ground.
We also help mature small businesses if they're running into a challenge.
We also work with them to try to locate grants. We also work with them to try
to find federal government contracts.
(02:40):
So in that particular arena, speaking of grants, the Smithsonian,
I don't know if you guys ever thought about that, but the Smithsonian sometimes
have grants looking for artists.
You have to look at the museums. You know, and Soda, I think you and I talked
about that when we first had our conversation.
There are millions and millions of museums that are operated by the government. Think about that.
(03:05):
They have grants that they give out to new artists.
And I can't remember what website we went on, Soda, but remember we found that
they were giving money to some artists for particular projects.
So when we talk about grants, grants is not specifically or just coming from the government.
Grants come from all sources, you know, in your city, in your state,
(03:28):
you know, in your county.
You know, specifically if you focus on libraries, museums, and you know how
many libraries and museums in your local state?
You might be surprised, you know, and I tell people to reach out.
To the individuals who manage, because no one owns the library or owns a museum,
(03:50):
but reach out to who manages those institutions and find out what type of art
projects that they have coming up.
And, you know, if there's grant money associated to that.
So hopefully I've answered the first question so we can move on to the next.
Yeah, because so many people, you think grants, oh, that's just U.S.,
(04:10):
you know, it's straight from the government.
So if you're not doing something specifically for the government,
there's no point in applying.
But there's a lot of stuff out there for, you know, even like musicians,
podcasters, people who, you know, and there's these companies,
I remember you were showing me these companies that really wants to help these creatives succeed.
(04:33):
And I'd love to hear more. So you talked about grants.gov.
I know that there's a lot of websites like
hello alice i don't really go to
that one too much because i'm not sure if they're
real granted so i never
dealt with that because i've had people say they apply they never hear anything
(04:54):
so my advice like i said earlier you have to reach your local sources first
because if you are a taxpayer in any state that deal with grants,
okay, for,
like I said, the library, the museums, the high school, the elementary school, they are programs.
(05:18):
It will be easier for you to get a grant from them because they have them.
You know, a lot of people want to go online and look at all these different
sites and apply and apply and they don't hear anything.
I say, start with your local community, you know, go to your local city hall
and go to the media people in there or whatever and ask them, hey,
(05:40):
who do I talk to about seeing what type of grants are available in my state, in my city?
And like I said, you'd be surprised that there is funding because the arts,
you know, what STEM is, right? Now it's STEAM.
It's society, technology, arts, and math.
(06:01):
Remember? They changed it. So if STEM turned into STEAM, then the A would be
where the artists and the musicians fall under.
So there are programs. Matter of fact, I just read an article last week where
I can't remember who composer is, But he started a program at one of the high
(06:22):
schools so that the kids can learn how to play specific instruments.
And they did that with a grant.
So any individual that's listening to this podcast, you know,
they can insert themselves in the high schools, in the elementary schools,
offer, you know, just say you want to offer some type of program for the kids
and ask them, do they have funding to support something like that? A lot of times they do.
(06:48):
And the other thing is that California, I just saw on 60 Minutes about two weeks ago,
California just implemented repairing of instruments and they got a massive
grant for that because a lot of kids, parents cannot afford to buy them a new instrument.
Instrument so the state of california just put
(07:10):
a they just got
a big grant a big donation i can't
remember which one it was but now they're going to repair
you know like broken instruments and be able to give them to the kids like new
so they can learn to play an instrument so grants.gov is one place let's go
through the steps grants.gov check box one go to your local state and ask what type
(07:37):
of grants or other funding opportunity that they have for artists.
Then go to your local city.
I live in Georgia. We have counties. I don't know if some people have boroughs,
you know, go to those people and ask them, Hey, you know, do you have any funding
grants, free money for artists?
You know, because if you, if you are a painter, you know, a lot of the local
(08:01):
painters us in Georgia, they exhibit their work all over Georgia. I mean, in our airport.
And the question is, how do these people do that? They get out.
You have to go out and talk to people.
Sitting at your computer and looking for grants is fine, but you have to connect
with the local artists and talk to those individuals, especially,
(08:23):
like I said, the museum and the libraries and say, where is grant money?
Your librarian is your best friend.
Because they know everything about everything because it's their job.
So check with your local librarian and ask, you know, are there,
do you know of any grants, you know, that are for artists?
Yeah, that's something that I definitely need to do. I live like three doors
(08:45):
down from a library and I just need to get over my shyness, my introversion.
But I know that, you know, I can't keep making excuses of not going for these
grants, these opportunities, just because I'm shy.
And what are some common mistakes that creatives make when applying for grants? They don't tell a story.
(09:12):
Story. Okay. So how important is storytelling?
That is very important. You know, I'm going to start with A.
A, you have to tell the story because the individual who's reading what you're
submitting, they don't know you from the next person.
So your story has to be convincing.
It has to show why would they give you this money for you to do whatever you're asking to do.
(09:38):
And the only way that they're going to know who you are, what your mission is,
what the outcome is going to be, is to list, to read your story.
And a lot of the information that a grantor would ask is basic stuff.
What are you going to do with this grant money? And if you say,
oh, I'm going to buy some awesome paintings.
(10:00):
You know, I'm going to paint a couple of paintings. They're like,
eh, people do that all the time.
But if you say, well, I'm going to go to the low-income schools and I'm going
to set up a program for the young kids to teach them how to paint and how to
do this, they'll be like, oh, you see the difference?
So you have to always talk your story where it's going to benefit others.
(10:22):
Granteurs' job is to give money to individual companies, individuals or companies
or nonprofits, whatever you may be, to help others.
That's what they want to know. Then they also want to know your stability because
if they give you $50,000 in grants, they have to be sure that you know how to
manage the $50,000 and you're not going to go out there and buy you a new car.
(10:46):
So that's another area where individuals who apply for grants do not explain
themselves thoroughly.
You have to have a budget. So kind of like a business plan type thing?
I would say a mini business plan. Okay. So you draft out kind of a mini business
plan for the grant when applying in addition to, and with that business plan,
(11:09):
you kind of tell the story of both why it's important to you and how it can help the society.
Right. And here's the thing, the grant application is going to tell you what they want to know.
And if they say submit three pages, do not submit five, because they're not
going to read the other two. Don't tell me.
(11:30):
They're just going to read what they want on the front end. Yeah,
so that's probably another big mistake that artists make is not exactly following
the rules that the application needs.
And my third thing, my third thing I want to jump in there, you have to be personal.
You have to write your grant responses as if you are talking to an individual because you are.
(11:55):
That's very important. It's like this podcast, you know, you talking to me,
I'm talking to you, but we have an audience.
Same thing when you respond to a grant. Can you give an example of how we can,
when we're writing our grants, how we can make it more personal versus generic? Yeah, sure.
So if I'm applying for a grant to open up an after school care program,
(12:21):
what I would do is talk about why that's important to me, not generally why
people need why people need after school care program.
I would make it heartfelt.
You know, for me, I need an afterschool program because, you know,
and I think it would help others because I'm a single parent,
you know, and I work long hours,
(12:44):
you know, and it would benefit my child if they had somewhere to go and,
you know, be creative after school, be able to intermingle with other children,
blah, blah, blah, instead of saying, well, you know, I would like to get a grant
to open up an after school care program,
you know, so that, you know, I could be able to, I can do that.
You talk about why it's important to you and why it's going to be helpful to
(13:08):
others in the same situation.
And that's just a mini version, you know, of what I think, how you can tell
the difference. And I think honestly, when it comes to arts or creativity,
so much of it, the benefit is to help society.
I know you helped me kind of figure out because with this podcast,
(13:29):
I'm like, how do I use this podcast to help my, my society and you helped me
really think about why I started it.
I started it because I didn't have the tools that I needed when I was in high
school and college to start my own creative business.
I didn't have any of that information. I had to learn it all on my own.
(13:53):
And I want to have that information for others.
And then you suggested maybe making a workbook for high school kids who kind
of want to go that direction.
Now that's helping me fulfilling my journey of learning everything that needs to be done.
Making my entrepreneur, creative entrepreneur business, getting funding,
(14:17):
but it is also helping, you know, high school kids or any adults who want to learn about it.
So I think in general, just having that bigger picture, understanding our why.
And if we are struggling with figuring out our why and how we can help society,
what are some ways that we can think of something like that?
(14:42):
Is there people like you that we could reach out to?
I know you mentioned you did stuff with the SBA.
Can you talk about what the SBA is and how we could find it?
Sure, sure, sure. The SBA means Small Business Administration.
And it's a regulatory organization that was developed by the federal government.
(15:03):
And it is funded by the federal government. And the purpose of the SBA is to
help small businesses to achieve their goals as a small business.
The SBA have different categories of preference, which is woman-owned,
small disadvantage, veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, HUBZone.
(15:25):
Those are the distinct socioeconomic groups under the federal sector of the
government that have preference. So you might say, what is preference?
It means that if you are applying for a contract or a grant and it's set aside
for a small business, you would get first preference over a large business.
(15:46):
So under the umbrella of SBA, there's an organization called SCORE, S-C-O-R-E in all caps.
So if you were to go to SCORE.org.
And you open up that website, it's a plethora of information up there. It's all free.
They connect you with a mentor. So if you went up there today,
Soda, and you went up there to score.org and you clicked on find a mentor,
(16:11):
they're going to ask you some questions about yourself, whatever you live in
and why you need a mentor.
And once you hit submit, if you say I need a mentor in the artist,
I mean, in the artist world,
you know, in the music world, and you hit submit, they will reach back out to
you with a mentor that understand what you are trying to do in your area of
(16:31):
expertise, which is artists.
And then that mentor sit down with you, you become buddy, buddy,
you can talk to them, you know, every week, if you want, it's what you guys set up.
And they walk you through every phase of what you need to know.
And I could repeat again, I always tell people it's free. You realize it, it is free.
Yeah, we a lot of people don't realize how many free resources there are.
(16:55):
And the arts, they go, oh, it's too competitive. It's too unlikely that I'm going to get anything.
How can we, and it is competitive. What are some ways in addition to having
a good story and following the rules,
what are some ways that we can stand out to make our project,
(17:15):
whatever it is, desirable for people to fund? I just tell people, be yourself.
There's only one of you. So regardless
if there's a lot of other people competing, there's only one of you.
And if you tell your story and talk about you and you're passionate about it.
And you drive the point home why you need the grant and you follow and answer all the questions.
(17:38):
A lot of people don't answer all the questions and the application get rejected.
You have to answer all the questions up until the end and submit what they ask you to submit.
And a lot of people fail to follow up. You know, a lot of people will apply
for grants and they never, ever go to that contact that's on there and say,
why didn't I get the grant? grant. Because, you know, if you get a letter,
(17:59):
say, well, we're sorry, thank you for applying.
However, you know, the grant will reach out to that person and say, what did I not submit?
Why didn't I get the grant? And you learn from the negative to make it a positive.
Yeah, asking that feedback. That's cool that they are even willing to do that.
I know that there are options to hire someone to write the grant for you.
(18:23):
How useful do you think that is? Is it worth the money?
I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on that. I'm positive and negative on
that because I don't think anybody can talk about themselves but yourself.
Because everything that the grant writer needs, you have to feed it to that individual.
And I know the grant writers that I've met, they're very costly.
(18:47):
So if you have deep pockets to throw it in the wind and if that's what you want
to do, then go forward. Because think about it, a grant writer does not guarantee
you're going to get the grant.
So once again, at SCORE.org, they have classes on how to write grants.
(19:08):
Go up there and in the search box, say how to obtain grants.
OK, on SCORE.org. And there's a whole bunch of classes up there,
which once again is free.
Or you can ask for a mentor to help you learn how to write your own grants.
Because like I said, no one can talk about yourself and your company or your work but you.
(19:30):
Grant writers are fine, but they are costly, very costly.
Because think about it. That's all they do. That is their job.
They are earning a living off of writing grants for you.
My intent is to apply for my own grants. I had somebody write me a grant package,
but the individual knows me.
If she didn't know me, that package costs $2,000. And a lot of these,
(19:52):
there's no guarantee that you're going to get that grant.
So you could be spending a lot of money, especially if it's a smaller grant.
I mean, I know that the grant that I am wanting to go for, it's like between
$50,000 and $80,000 or something because it's a pretty big project.
But if it's something small, there's definitely, you don't want to. Right, right.
(20:17):
And I think if you, I can't think of the name of the website,
but there are professional websites out there that will give you information
on, you know, how to complete your grant.
But like I said, my best resource is score.org.
For real, that's the best I can give you because it's free.
(20:38):
And there's a lot of information up there. I think it's Candid.
I think it's C-A-N-D-I-D.
I think that's the organization where they have classes on how to write grants and stuff like that.
But you can ask AI how to write a good grant now.
But the key to a good grant to you, Soda, and anybody listening is to tell your
(21:00):
story, follow the directions, make sure you respond to every question,
and make sure you submit what they're asking you to submit.
And if you don't get the grant, do a follow-up, a feedback to know why you didn't get the grant.
I know you mentioned SCORE before to me, but I haven't done it yet because I
(21:22):
think that my biggest thing that's holding me back is feeling like I don't have enough credentials.
I don't have, I'm not making enough money already for my business.
It has nothing to do with it.
It has zero to do with the work. Even if it's something,
so for example, the thing that I'm working on making the handbook about entrepreneurship,
(21:45):
is there how much like experience do you need to be already making money?
Does your business need to be set up with an LLC?
Zero. If you're just thinking about opening a business, reach out to SCORE.
They will tell you what you need to do to open a business. It doesn't matter
if you're doing a dog walking business.
(22:06):
It really doesn't. They have mentors in every field you could have possibly imagined.
So once again. That is so good to know. Yeah. I can't say that enough. I can't say that enough.
SCORE.org, you know. And I will have that in the show notes below,
the score.org, because that sounds like an amazing, amazing site.
(22:30):
Okay. You know Sarah, right? Yes. Okay.
Sarah reached out to SCORE, her and her brother, and they have a whole building
of mentors, and she's so excited.
So just check with Sarah. She will validate what I'm saying.
I think I got the naysayers stuck in my head, like, oh, you can't get a grant.
You don't have, you're not established enough.
(22:51):
You don't have the experience. And so I've been very reluctant.
So now you got me having more confidence about that. So I really appreciate that.
And I tell people who goes for and you get a mentor, that's what I call a deadbeat.
And you're not risking anything.
No, you're not. It's free. Right. And you're going to find out that you're going
(23:15):
to find out more information that you could imagine.
And so if you aren't able to get a grant, there's no grants that work for you
or the ones that you do, your application gets rejected.
Are there any other sort of places where you can go to try to get funding,
whether crowdsourcing or companies or anything?
(23:38):
Your state, your city, your borough, whatever those other little things they
call inside of the state.
You know, you can go to those because they have funding.
You know, I found out something interesting about a week ago.
You know, the coaches for the kids at school, I thought they were salaried.
(24:01):
They get stifled. I was shocked.
They don't get stifled. They're stifled. So maybe these schools and these libraries,
you know, maybe they have stifles where, you know, they say we have,
you know, $2,500 looking for somebody to do this.
Or a hundred thousand, it might not come in the form of a grant.
It might come in the form of an investor. You have people that invest in different
(24:26):
portions of the schools, you know, whether it's public or private,
you know, they have endowment, you know, people leave money.
So there, there's a lot of other resources out there besides grants that can fund your programs.
So I will say once Once again, if you go to SCORE.org, ask the pertinent questions.
(24:47):
Well, if you can't help me with grants, do you know how else I can get funding for what I'm doing?
Your local librarian is your best friend. I can't say that enough.
You know, they should know all the other sources outside of just getting a grant.
Because art is very needed. And if they change STEM to STEAM,
(25:10):
I mean, there has to be a reason why they put the arts back in it.
Might have to do a little research, but I think everybody, you know,
myself, you or anybody listening to this podcast will find the answer.
You just have to figure out where you want to implement yourself in the process.
(25:30):
You know, it's not always about grants. You know, you can go up there and do
your own campaign for funding.
If your project is something that's needed in your community,
I tell people, start in your own community.
Get to know your local council people. Go talk to them. Let them know what you're
trying to do in the community.
(25:52):
They will give you the answers. And it's not always grants, but there are other
types of funding out there.
I wish people talked about this so much more often.
And that's why I'm really glad you were willing to come on to talk about this
because so many people don't realize how many opportunities they focus so much
on sponsorships of getting these big companies to pay for ads or things like that.
(26:18):
But there's so many more options. So I really, really, really appreciate that.
And I'd love to hear if there are any final thoughts before we end on people
who might be struggling to feel that confidence to apply for these grants or
feel that maybe their project might not be worth it.
(26:38):
Well, this is my closure. I use that. My closure is this. You first believe in yourself.
Got to first believe in yourself. Every door you knock on is not going to be a yes.
But there will be some doors you knock on that will be a yes.
And you have to be prepared when that individual say, of course, I'll support you.
(26:59):
That is not the time for you to run back home and try to get it together.
You have to have it together before you knock on the door, which I do a lot
of teaching that in my mentoring to entrepreneurs, okay, who's in every field that I'm familiar with.
I make sure that my mentees are prepared before they go knock on the door.
(27:21):
Because once you get the, how can I help you?
You have to be able to spill it out of your mouth, talk about your project,
be confident in your own project.
Because if you can't regurgitate who you are, what are you trying to offer somebody?
How is it going to help somebody? And why do they need to give you money?
It's no sense of knocking on those doors or even filling out grants.
(27:44):
Am. So my number one thing is have confidence in yourself.
My number two thing is be prepared when you go out and start talking to people
about your event or your project or whatever you're doing.
And number three is it's going to happen.
It's going to happen. You have to have faith and believe that what you're doing
is positive and somebody needed.
(28:07):
And finally, you know somebody needed. There are millions of schools out here.
There are millions of museums.
There are millions in the libraries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So narrow it down to where do you want your artistic abilities to be and how
far are you willing to put yourself out there and talk about your project?
You know, they say the people who get noticed is the people who make the most noise.
(28:33):
And that's a true statement. If you don't make a lot of noise about yourself
and about your project, who's going to know?
Yeah. And that could be hard to do. Sometimes you're like, oh, I feel annoying.
But I mean, that's the only way it's going to be done. So I really needed to hear that.
But check this out. Here's another way. You have a lot of shy people in the world.
(28:53):
Get somebody else to be your mouthpiece. You get somebody else to get something for you.
Yeah. I love that. Because I know for me, I could talk so much about how great
someone else's project is, but I have a hard time talking about my own.
So maybe even swapping with someone who likes your project, you like their project,
(29:15):
and you could talk about each other's project. That's right.
I love that. You only need the voice out there.
And that voice has to be knowledgeable. okay i mean
you have a lot of famous people or
people that they get in front of the camera they
have spokesmen try that angle i'm gonna
(29:36):
try that i'm gonna try it but thanks so much
again ernest i even even though we've talked before i still needed everything
that you said today so i really appreciate it and i know you're super busy so
i will let you go but i will make Make sure to have any links that you want to send me.
(29:57):
I know you've sent me some before, so I'm going to make sure to have those in the show notes.
Any of your personal links that you want people to be able to have,
I will definitely add those in.
Okay. I will text you and send it to you, and then you can put them in the bottom.
But the biggest one is at score.org. Yes.
(30:18):
Thanks again for joining me on this week's episode of The Success Palette.
For information on social media links where you can request any specific episode
that might help you in your creative journey, and also information on how to
watch some bonus episodes,
you can go to thesuccesspalette.com.
(30:41):
And let's work together to make sure this week is a successful one.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.