Develop Grants
Develop Grants
Apply online in the grants portal from August 30 - October 11 at 5pm
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.
Please read the guidelines before completing your application. Guidelines include important information about eligibility and review criteria.
Download the slides from our August 30 Create & Develop grants orientation.
The Develop Grant application is an online application. Download this Microsoft Word document to view the list of application questions.
Key Dates
Registration encouraged. The grants orientation will begin with a presentation about Create and Develop grants by Grants Program Manager Tamara Liu, including changes from last cycle. There will be time for questions after the presentation. The orientation will be in English with Spanish-language interpretation available.
Location: Digital NEST, 318 Union St Building B, Watsonville, CA 95076 (Daisy Lecture Room, 2nd floor)
RegisterRegistration encouraged. The grants orientation will begin with a presentation about Create and Develop grants by Grants Program Manager Tamara Liu, including changes from last cycle. There will be time for questions after the presentation. The orientation will be in English with Spanish-language interpretation available.
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85267924886?pwd=WnpLbVVkOGxwYnI0QmFaT1BhTEEydz09 (Meeting ID: 85267924886 Passcode: 468263)
RegisterOffice 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 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!
UPDATED 9/12/23. Dates/times/locations are subject to change. All changes will be posted here on our website.
Watsonville office hours:
- Saturday September 16, 1-2pm at Pajaro Valley Arts - Porter Building, 280 Main Street, Watsonville
- Wednesday October 4, 5-6pm at the Watsonville Library conference room (2nd floor), 275 Main Street, Watsonville
Santa Cruz office hours:
- Wednesday September 6, 5-6pm at the Arts Council conference room, 1070 River Street, Santa Cruz
- Saturday September 30, 1-2pm at the Arts Council conference room, 1070 River Street, Santa Cruz
Virtual office hours on Zoom:
- Monday evenings:
- Sept. 11 & 18 at 5pm, Oct 2 at 4:30pm (half an hour earlier), & Oct 9 at 5pm - no office hours on Sept. 25
- Click here to join Zoom (ID: 88913958289 Passcode: 266505)
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 award letter.
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.
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.