Five reasons applying for an NEA grant might make you cry
No matter how deserving your project, the government grant application process is designed to kill your spirit.
1. Step one is a doozy.
The NEA has spent gazillions of dollars rewriting its grants application process, but there are still more steps than you can possibly imagine and there are always instructions that seem simple until you click the link.
Before applying, applicants must first obtain a DUNS number, register with the System Award Management (SAM), and register with grants.gov.
Pro Tip: That’s like saying “before you can apply for college, applicants must first have a baby, send them to high school, and go through the financial aid process.”
2. NO one has this much patience.
The first step is literally “read all of the directions” as though the application were written by that evil middle school teacher who gave the test that started with Step 1 “read all the directions first” and ended with Step 25 “just write your name at the top of this page and nothing else. Now sit back with me and watch everyone else fail.”
There are directions within directions.
3. Your intelligence is a liability.
The step-by-step instructions are so basic that you’ll run screaming before you get through the first step. (equivalent of taking four hours to tell someone how to make a peanut butter sandwich by starting with what is peanut butter, and ending with how to wash peanut butter off utensils, with extra pages of information about what to do if you have peanut allergies). After you have spent hours on this, you discover that there is an entirely different video for Nutella).
The excessive detail is both mind-numbing and completely confusing (there are many ways to open the peanut butter jar, one of which is to twist the peanut butter jar in opposite directions, with your right hand on the lid and left hand on the jar unless you are opposite handed in which case put your left hand on the lid and your right hand on the jar then twist sharply right if your right hand is on the lid or sharply left if your left hand is on the jar. Alternately you might use the other hand with the other direction to increase torque if the jar has not opened on the first sharp twist, but in that case you are twisting the jar and holding the lid steady. Or you might also twist both in opposite directions at once. And if you only have one hand, you can put the jar in a secure clamp like between your thighs.)
Because they expect all users to get confused, the government offers very clear seven minute videos for every sub-step of the process. Here is one that shows you how to do an online search (spoiler: there are three ways and a link to another explanatory video before the first minute is up…)
4. Your individuality is also a liability.
More than anything, the government wants you to fit into their well-defined buckets.
What if you are an arts nonprofit that combines dance with books? You have to choose the one bucket that fits you “best.” There are no categories for “other” — you must choose from among the various selections, and there are loads because (as you can imagine) in the arts people keep raising their hands and saying “hey, so? we don’t fit in here.”
What does this mean? The more unusual your program, the less chance that people will understand it. If your project is interdisciplinary, you are not judged by a selection of people from the various disciplines that overlap to create this new thing you have envisioned. Instead you will likely be judged by people who identify solidly in one of the disciplines and who might not actually like the idea of “sullying” their discipline with novelty. (As an example, remember how hard it was for any sort of genre writing to be accepted by the academic core of literary fiction not so long ago — while nowadays, fantasy writers are getting Genius awards and sci fi writers are also Nobel Laureates and naturally counted as literary.)
5. The big guys always win.
Not only the big guys win, but they do always win (doesn’t mean the little guys don’t sometimes also win). And to be fair, this year, a huge effort has been made to be more inclusive to small nonprofit organizations. Huge.
Also it is true that for around four years, the government attempted to murder the arts outright, without pretense. Conservatives are fiercely angry that a lot of government-funded art is outright liberal in tone and message. This might be true, given that I know of exactly zero NEA-funded hugely conservative arts organizations. But then, I’ve never heard of any “conservative arts organizations” at all. Can the same political argument be made that “huge liberal agro-farms” never get farm subsidies from the government so all government funding for farms should cease?
So why do I say the game is still rigged? Because the burden of administrative time necessary to fill out just one government grant application (with no guarantee that the money will come) is almost impossible for a small organization to take on. The burden of time is so high that the government actually provides charts letting you know the estimated cost to your time of the reporting (which take time to find and to read).
According to the chart for the NEA grant I have been applying for for the last three weeks, this burden, for this grant, is one hour. I have so far spent maybe 20 hours collecting the data and arranging it so that it is ready to go when the grant portal opens (step 6 of many, and the first time I get to actually describe our project). I am certain that if my nonprofit had a development department, gathering the data would take less time.
I can’t afford development staff.
My tiny all-volunteer arts nonprofit is vying for the same federal funds as the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Public Theater. In the natural world, it makes for a healthier environment for the little gazelles if the large, hungry predators get to drink from the water pool first and be on their way, but in this case, we all arrive at once and are assured that everyone will have their chance at the water.
I believe them. I have to, because this is the only way to get any water at all these days. I’m ready to apply, whatever the burden and however large the grantwriting staff of the competition’s department of development is. I have hope.
The nail on the sanity coffin is that the government’s newly rewritten guidelines are suffocating me with kindness. On every page is either an acknowledgement of the burden of administrative reporting time or a gently worded non-apology like this one:
We understand that applying for federal funding and managing a grant can be a significant undertaking.
It’s like being guided through a minefield by a gentle grandmother who keeps telling you she thinks you can make it without dying if you just keep going. You want to trust her, but also, you are so afraid of the mines that even her guidance seems like a threat.
By the way, if you don’t lose your mind, and you manage to complete the application, win the grant despite all odds, and complete the project despite whatever pandemic-or environmental-related emergencies your arts organization faces, I’d love to hear about it.
I’m wild for the arts and I attend every opening I can.
