Please review the following criteria and choose the category — Artistic Creativity or Cultural Participation — that best fits the project you would like to propose.

Artistic Creativity

To encourage the creation of new work in communities across California and primarily outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

We consider requests for one or two-year projects that:

• Create new work or offer a contemporary reinterpretation of classic work
• Involve individual artists in collaboration with a local nonprofit organization

Criteria

The most competitive projects:

• Demonstrate imagination, creativity and artistic innovation
• Involve individual artists that are not routinely employed by the organization
• Dedicate a significant percentage of grant dollars to artists’ fees
• Understand and present work that will appeal to their local community
• Demonstrate the highest artistic quality in its appropriate context
• Have the potential to be presented in areas beyond the proposed performance or locale
• Have a diverse base of funding reflecting strong support from the local community
• Are undertaken by organizations with proven capacity (financial and managerial) and artistic track record to successfully implement the project

Cultural Participation

To encourage community-based arts organizations, primarily outside the San Francisco Bay Area, to broaden, deepen and diversify participation in their programs.

We consider requests for one or two-year projects that focus on audience development in one or more of the following ways:

• Broaden participation: Attract greater numbers of the current target audience.
• Deepen participation: More deeply engage the current audience with the work presented or with the organization. For example, this might include encouraging single-ticket buyers to become season ticket holders or offering educational programs to deepen the audience's understanding and appreciation of the work presented.
• Diversify participation: Attract a new demographic of audience. For example, this might include attracting a different age group, a more ethnically diverse audience, or residents from a different geographic area. We consider all aspects of diversity.

Criteria

The most competitive projects:

• Clearly articulate the target audience
• Identify creative and innovative strategies to reach the target audience
• Use marketing strategies that are relevant and appropriate for the target audience
• Evaluate the success of the strategies and adjust tactics, as necessary
• Plan for a sustained audience development effort (For this reason, two-year projects are generally more competitive than one-year projects.)
• Are undertaken by organizations that present works that reflect the diverse cultural traditions of California residents
• Emphasize the involvement of audiences that are not traditional arts attendees
• Have a diverse base of funding reflecting strong support from the local community
• Are undertaken by organizations with proven capacity (financial and managerial) and artistic track record to successfully implement the project

Regarding in-school arts education projects: Please note that we are not currently funding projects that primarily focus on school-related arts education or artists’ programs in schools. Competitive projects will encourage prolonged engagement with the arts. One-time events or field trips for school-age youth should fit into the organization’s broader strategy for increasing cultural participation.