Develop Grants
Develop Grants
Funding for professional development (activities that improve artistic skills or expand business and professional capacity) up to $1,500. Develop grants do not require a public presentation/exhibition. Open to Santa Cruz County artists and arts organizations.
Applications will open February 12 - March 19, 2025. The information below is from last year and will be updated in January 2025.
Sign up for our Grants newsletter at the bottom of this page to get notified about all of our grant offerings.
Please read the guidelines before completing your application. Guidelines include important information about eligibility and review criteria.
The Develop Grant application is an online application. Download this Microsoft Word document to view the list of application questions in advance.
Key Dates
At Pajaro Valley Arts’ Porter Building, 280 Main Street in Watsonville. Registration encouraged. The orientation will begin with a presentation by Tamara Liu, Grants Program Manager, covering everything you need to know about Create & Develop grants. There will be time for questions after the presentation. Event information will be emailed ahead of the event to those who register.
Register HereBegin working on your application in the grants portal.
Grants PortalRegistration encouraged. The orientation will begin with a presentation by Tamara Liu, Grants Program Manager, covering everything you need to know about Create & Develop grants. There will be time for questions after the presentation. Zoom information will be emailed ahead of the event to those who register.
Register HereNo registration, but please email grantsprogram@artscouncilsc.org if you prefer Spanish so we can have a Spanish-speaking staff member present.
Office hours are informal times when you can get grant application support from Arts Council staff. You can drop in during any of the scheduled times, and since there isn’t a presentation, you don’t have to be there at the beginning or stay til the end. If lots of folks show up at once, we’ll use a learning circle approach, with each person sharing questions or ideas. If you’re the only one, you will get direct one-on-one support! No questions or situations are too simple or too complicated. Hope to see you there!
Click below to join the Zoom meeting (Meeting ID: 82141625968 Passcode: g5z82Muf).
Join Zoom MeetingDrop-in office hours in Santa Cruz at the Arts Council office, 1070 River Street, Santa Cruz CA 95060
Office hours are informal times when you can get grant application support from Arts Council staff. Siince there isn’t a presentation, you don’t have to be there at the beginning of the hour or stay til the end. If lots of folks show up at once, we’ll use a learning circle approach, with each person sharing questions or ideas. If you’re the only one, you will get direct one-on-one support! No questions or situations are too simple or too complicated. Hope to see you there!
Drop-in office hours at Arte del Corazón, 80 Airport Blvd Ste 206, Freedom CA 95019. No registration.
Office hours are informal times when you can get grant application support from Arts Council staff. Siince there isn’t a presentation, you don’t have to be there at the beginning of the hour or stay til the end. If lots of folks show up at once, we’ll use a learning circle approach, with each person sharing questions or ideas. If you’re the only one, you will get direct one-on-one support! No questions or situations are too simple or too complicated. Hope to see you there!
Please plan to submit your application well before 5pm! Late applications due to technical difficulties or any other reason are not accepted. The grants portal is often slower to load as the deadline approaches.
Look for an email on this date, sent to the email you used to log into the grants portal. The email will be sent by administrator@grantinterface.com, so please make sure to add this address to your safe sender list.
Grant payments will be sent once you’ve signed your grant agreement.
When all funded activities/expenses must take place
Develop Grant FAQs
We are using a new scoring rubric, and changes have been made to the Impact on Artist / Organization criteria. Please see the Review Criteria section of the guidelines for more information
- In addition to the three review criteria, further consideration will be given to: applicants living in neighborhoods most disproportionately impacted by inequities as indicated by the California Healthy Places Index (HPI). HPI is determined by mapping 23 key drivers of health outcomes — like education, job opportunities, and clean air and water. Click here for more information on HPI.
- Universities and colleges are ineligible for Develop grants (including serving as a fiscal sponsor for an arts program).
- Applicants may only apply for one grant per cycle (Create or Develop, not both).
- Support and Elevate grantees are no longer eligible to apply for Develop grants, in order to reserve enough of that funding for individual artists and other arts organizations. Support and Elevate grantees also remain ineligible for Create grants.
- Develop grants do not fund tuition for college/university classes.
The First-Time Applicant Pool is available only to applicants who have never submitted a grant application to the Arts Council. If you have applied before, regardless of whether you were awarded the grant or not, you are no longer a first-time applicant.
Some examples include but are not limited to: fees and travel expenses to attend a class or conference, apprenticeship, hiring a consultant, software purchases, social media support, updating a website, purchasing equipment, or even marketing materials for a specific development opportunity (such as a film festival). View our list of current grantees for some examples of recently funded Develop grants (note that all types of grants are included on this webpage).
Current GranteesYes, we recognize that in certain cases materials or supplies can have a significant impact on an artist’s skills or career, even if they are “consumable” and will be used up quickly. However, you must be able to make a clear case for why those specific materials will have an impact for you in the long term. What will happen once those materials/supplies are gone? Will you then be at a new place in your artistic development? If so, it may be worthwhile to apply. If not, an application for those materials/supplies will likely not be very competitive compared to other applications. We know every artist needs access to materials and supplies, but since our grants are limited by our available budget, we want to ensure our grants have the most impact possible.
First, read the guidelines. Once you've done that, if you're still unsure, please feel free to reach out and ask! Email our team at grantsprogram@artscouncilsc.org.
We would like to learn more about your recent professional development (in the past two years) and how the activities/expenses you are seeking funding for are related to the professional development work you have engaged in most recently.
If you are planning to have an audience and / or participants, then you most likely are eligible to apply for a Create grant, which has a higher maximum award. If you're not planning to share your work publicly as part of the grant, then a Develop grant may be a better fit. However, certain activities can sometimes fit either type of grant. First, read the guidelines. We also highly recommend attending the Zoom grants orientation. Once you've done that, if you're still unsure, please feel free to reach out and ask! Email our team at grantsprogram@artscouncilsc.org.
General FAQs are available at the bottom of our Apply for a Grant webpage.