apply

 

1. What do you consider an “art”? Is what I do considered “art”?

2. Do you fund school tuition?

3. What are you looking for from my application?

4. Can you give me more guidelines for what projects you will fund?

5. Did you get my application? Why haven’t I heard anything yet?

6. When will you make a decision?

7. What can I do while I’m waiting?

8. I didn’t get a grant and I want to reapply. Can you tell me how I can improve my application?

 

1. What do you consider an “art”? Is what I do considered “art”?

If you consider it an art, we want you to tell us why. We encourage you to fill out the application and tell us in more detail what it is you’re seeking to do. Each artist is different and we read every application and consider in detail each artist’s story and funding needs. The more specific you can be about your project, the better. We encourage you to look through the profiles of our past recipients to see examples of projects that we have funded in the past. These profiles will give you a good idea of what we have funded, but they are not the extent of what we fund.

2. Do you fund school tuition?

We have funded students in the past. As our application pool has grown and the cost of tuition has risen, however, we find it harder to fund “school” in general. We are constantly trying to focus on how best to direct our grant dollars to make the most impact. We find it is easier to fund students when they have a specific project they are looking to do. We encourage you to look through the profiles of our past recipients to see examples of projects that we have funded in the past.

3. What are you looking for from my application?

We are looking to hear your story about what drives you to create and how we can support you in realizing your vision. The purpose of this foundation is to support artists in San Diego County. To that end, many of our applicants have a strong tie to San Diego, and their work benefits or impacts the community in some way. But those are not hard and fast requirements.

4. Can you give me more guidelines for what projects you will fund?

We’ve made our application fairly open and flexible, because we want it to be as accessible as possible. We’ve heard from artists who say that our grant application is easy and straightforward compared to other grant applications, and that is our goal! On the other hand, for those who are looking for more specific guidelines, it can be frustrating not knowing exactly what you need to say. The best way to know how your project fits in is to look at the descriptions of our past recipients and what they have done with their grant funds. You’ll see that there are a range of artists and a range of ways they have used their grant funds. We want you to tell us why we should fund your project.

5. Did you get my application? Why haven’t I heard anything yet?

When you submit your application, you should get a confirmation email. If you don’t get a confirmation email, you should contact us at info@williammalefoundation.org to make sure we’ve gotten your application. If you got a confirmation email, then you may not hear from us again until we’ve made a decision, unless we need additional information from you.

6. When will you make a decision?

We have two application cycles during the year. If you submitted your application between January 1 and June 30, you will receive a decision by October 1. If you submitted your application between July 1 and December 31, you will receive a decision by April 1. This information is also on our Grant Info page.

If you are submitting your application and need the requested grant funds before those two decision dates listed above, please send us an email at info@williammalefoundation.org to let us know. In some cases, we may be able to look at your application and make a decision sooner.

7. What can I do while I’m waiting?

Make sure your recommender has submitted their letter of recommendation to us. The letter should come directly from the recommender, emailed to apply@williammalefoundation.org. Make sure you have also submitted samples of your work to us.

8. I didn’t get a grant and I want to reapply. Can you tell me how I can improve my application?

We get this question a lot, and while we have tried to give feedback in the past, we find the applicant then only focuses on those points we made. We get a lot of applications and every application is different, so we take into account many different factors when we make our decision (the applicant’s project, funding needs, the impact our funding can make, etc.). We also try to interview as many applicants as we can, because we find an in-person meeting is the best way to learn more about the artist.

We wish we could fund every artist we meet, because we believe in the work you do and we believe in the importance of the arts in our community. So, oftentimes, it really just comes down to making hard decisions.

You should definitely reapply. In general, being specific about your project is always helpful, providing samples of your work, and having a strong letter of recommendation helps, too (yes, we do read them!).