Grant Programs

General Operation Grant Guidelines

GUIDELINES 2013

Applicant Eligibility

Organizations located in the City of Philadelphia may apply for funding if they meet the following eligibility requirements:

  1. Arts and culture is the primary focus of their mission. Arts and culture is defined as dedicated to creating, preserving and/or exhibiting visual, literary and performing arts, architecture, science and history. Sixty percent (60%) of the organization’s activities or budget must be arts and culture related.
  1. Official office and place of business operations must be located in the City of Philadelphia as demonstrated by the address on the organization’s official 990 document, information on the website, letterhead and printed public materials. Organizations that use P.O. Boxes as their official address will have to demonstrate that they qualify as a Philadelphia based organization. Please do not use the address of a board member or volunteer.
  1. A demonstrated commitment to provide arts and culture to the residents of the City of Philadelphia. At least 60% of programs must be presented in the City of Philadelphia.
  2. Incorporated as a not for profit in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and recognition of 501(c)(3) tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). (See below for eligibility of new and emerging organizations).

Exceptions:

  • New and emerging organizations may use a fiscal conduit.
  • Organizations with budges of $50,000K or less.
  1. Must have a Governing/Advisory Group (such as a board of directors, advisory committee, or programming committee). Ideally the composition of this group represents the diversity of the broader community.
  1. Must have programs available to the public (OK to charge for them) and attended by a broad range of participants. Examples of unacceptable programs: a library collection of valuable documents not open to the public for study or research.
  2. Non discriminatory employment and personnel practices.
  3. NEW THIS YEAR: Must be in compliance with IRS 990 regulations. If fiscal year ended 9/30/2011 or earlier, the 2011 990 tax return must be filed.
  4. NEW THIS YEAR: Audited financial statements, if required, must be completed within 1 year of the filing of the 990 tax return.  The Bureau of Charitable Organizations requires organizations that raise $300,000 or more in contributed income to obtain a financial audit.

New and/or Emerging Organizations

What constitutes an organization?

·         Three or more people

·         An articulated artistic or cultural mission and vision

·         The presence of a governing group of people who give guidance and advice (a board or committee)

·         At least one person responsible for ensuring programmatic and fiscal accountability

·         A plan or planning process as to how to obtain the stated mission and vision

 

New and/or emerging organizations are eligible for funding if they meet each of the following guidelines:

  1. Arts and culture is the primary focus of their mission. Arts and culture is defined as dedicated to creating, preserving and/or exhibiting visual, literary and performing arts, architecture, science and history. Sixty percent (60%) of the organization’s activities or budget must be arts and culture related.
  2. The organization has a demonstrated track record of public programming.
  3. The organization has the capacity to carry out its stated programming goals through the support of staff, board and/or volunteers.
  4. Official office and place of business operations must be located in the City of Philadelphia
  5. Sixty percent (60%) of programs must be presented in the City of Philadelphia.
  6. Must have a Governing/Advisory Group (such as a board of directors, advisory committee, or programming committee). Ideally the composition of this group represents the diversity of the broader community.
  7. Non discriminatory employment and personnel practices.
  8. The organization is not incorporated as a nonprofit corporation during the first 5 years of funding.
  9. The organization may use a local fiscal sponsor for 5 years in lieu of having its own 501(c)3 status.  The organization must have a letter of authority acknowledging its application from its sponsoring fiscal conduit organization. The fiscal conduit must be a Philadelphia cultural organization with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Organizations with Budgets under $50,000

Organizations with budgets of less than $50,000 may use a local fiscal sponsor indefinitely. The organization must have a letter of authority acknowledging its application from its sponsoring fiscal conduit organization The fiscal conduit must be aPhiladelphiacultural organization with 501(c) (3) tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

 

 

Ineligible Applicants

The following are not eligible for Cultural Fund grants:

  • Individual artists. (However, grantee organizations may be encouraged to include artists in their programs.)
  • Organizations whose primary purpose is not arts and culture.
  • Agencies and departments of city, state and federal governments.
  • Public or private elementary or secondary schools, colleges and universities with some exceptions (please speak to PCF staff about these exceptions).
  • Institutions that receive ongoing operating support from the City through the recreation department, Councilman offices, Mayor’s office or any other City department.
  • Organizations that receive support from the City’s Activities Fund
  • Organizations whose offices and/or place of business are located outside the City ofPhiladelphia.
  • Organizations whose programs are held primarily outside the City ofPhiladelphia.

 

No applicant organization will be eligible to receive a

grant amount greater than 30 percent of its operating budget

 

 

 

Categories of Application

Grant applications are reviewed by peer panel process. This means that an organization that applies in the dance category will have their application reviewed by their peers – dancers, choreographers and other professionals working in thePhiladelphiadance field. A panel is convened for each category.

Each applicant self-selects the category in which they wish to apply. The PCF staff may contact you to suggest a change in category if another category would be more appropriate or beneficial based on your application.

Categories include:

  • Art Center/Community Center – presents exhibitions, performances, readings, workshops, lectures, demonstrations, classes or other arts and culture related activities.
  • Arts Education – directly provides or coordinates discipline-based arts instruction or integrates arts learning into core curricula at home agency, in schools, or community settings;  provides educational programs or services to artists, arts and culture organizations, schools, and/or the general public in one or more disciplines.
  • Arts Service Organization – provides services to artists or arts and culture organizations in the areas of their program, artifacts, general management, resource networks and advocacy.
  • Dance – includes the creation and performance of a wide variety of dance styles and/or dance instruction.
  • Historic Sites – includes preservation, conservation, documentation and educational interpretation of an historic site.
  • Museums – institution devoted to acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical or artistic value.
  • Music – includes the creation and performance of a wide variety of musical styles and/or music instruction.
  • Presenting - presents artists in performance and/or residency settings, including single presentations, tours, productions, concerts and performances.
  • Multi-disciplinary – presents or curates more than one artistic discipline or is involved in interdisciplinary collaboration of artforms/works.
  • Literary Arts: includes the creation, presentation and/or publishing of a wide variety of literary styles as well as the development of small presses which publish and distribute works of local, national and international writers.
  • Theater - includes the creation and performance of a wide variety of theatre styles and/or theatre instruction.
  • Visual Arts - includes the creation, exhibition and documentation of a wide variety of styles.
  • Media Arts – creation, production, artistic development and technical training in film, video and radio.
  • New and Emerging – Arts and cultural organizations of all types that have been operating for 5 years or less. (see guidelines for new and emerging organizations)
  • Large Institutions – Arts and cultural organizations of all types that have an operating budget (average of 3 years budgets) of $5,000,000 or more.

Please call the office and speak with a staff member if you need assistance determining in which category you should apply.

Several Application Workshops will be held in various areas of the city to assist you with completing your application. A list of workshops will be available on this website or you may call the office for information.  If you cannot attend a workshop, but need assistance, please contact the PCF office at 267-242-8150 or  michelle@philaculturalfund.org. First time applicants are required to attend a workshop.

How your Application is Reviewed

DEADLINE: Applications must be completed online no later than midnight on Sunday, September 30, 2012. Late applications will not be accepted.

Applications will be reviewed by the staff to check that the application is complete. Applications that are missing required materials will not be reviewed. Applications that do not include the organization’s CDP PCF Funder Report will not be reviewed. In the past, incomplete applications have been allowed an opportunity to “make up” any deficiencies.  There will be no such opportunities this year.

Your application will be assigned to a peer panelist, who will contact your organization to schedule a site visit to your organization. A site visit should involve an interview with senior management and/or a board member. It may also include the panelist’s attendance at a performance or program. While one person is assigned to make the site visit, all panelists will review and read your application.

Meeting with your peer panelist is mandatory. Your peer panelist is the advocate for your organization during the panel meeting. As your advocate, it is important that the panelist feels welcome and knows that an organization is prepared for his/her site visit. A meeting with the peer panelist is an opportunity to present and discuss the organization’s programs and accomplishments over the past year in the most positive and constructive way possible. Panelists who experience difficulties may not leave the visit with an overall favorable response to the organization. Please make sure to respond promptly to the peer panelist when they are trying to set up an appointment. Please try not to forget your appointment, keep your peer panelist waiting (remember their time is valuable also), or use the visit to complain about city funding or previous grant amounts.

When the panel convenes, the visiting panelist will describe for the others the experience he/she had with your organization during the site visit. Each panelist will then share their impressions of your application, and any direct experience they may have had with your organization over the past year. Panelists who have a conflict of interest with the organization will be asked to leave the room prior to the discussion and scoring. Examples of conflicts of interest are: being an employee or paid consultant; being a board or committee member or a volunteer.

At the end of the panel discussion, each panelist will be asked to give the organization a score from 1 to 100. A score of 90 – 100 is superior; 80 – 89 excellent; 70-79 good; 60-69 fair. All the scores are added together, then divided by the number of panelists, in order to get an average. This is the final panel score.

At this point, all final panel scores go through a “normalization” process.  Because each panel will have its own range of scores low to high, the panels are compared against each other (mathematically) and scores are adjusted up or down so that the mean score of each panel is normalized.

The final normalized score is used by a statistician to calculate the grant amount for those organizations who receive awards.

 

 

CULTURAL DATA PROJECT

Philadelphia Cultural Fund partners with the Cultural Data Project (CDP). PCF, along with other funders in Pennsylvania, now requires applicants to complete a Data Profile annually through the Pennsylvania CDP website.

You will use the information you enter into the Data Profile to produce the PCF Funder Report, which must be attached to your online application. Other reports generated from CDP will not be accepted! Please make certain you have the correct report!

The Pennsylvania CDP will provide the cultural community with consistent, reliable, comprehensive data on arts and culture in Pennsylvania, and enable organizations to view trends in their data, benchmark themselves against peer organizations, and enhance their financial management capacity.

For more information about the Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project, please see www.pacdp.org.

Instructions for New Users of the Pennsylvania CDP:

  1. Go to www.pacdp.org and click on “Register” which takes you to “New User Registration.”
  2. Create new Data Profile. Complete a Data Profile for each of the FOUR most recently completed fiscal years; start with the earliest year.
  3. Enter data using your board-approved financial audit/review or year-end financial statements.
    1. If your organization is not audited/reviewed, enter data based on board-approved year-end financial statements.
    2. If your organization is an arts program/department within larger institution, enter data based on internal financial statements of the arts program/department and indicate that you have a parent organization in Section 1.
    3. DO NOT enter project budgets, budgets for future years, or data from incomplete or not-yet-approved audits/reviews/financial statements.
  4. When finished entering data, click on Submit/Error Check; address any errors and call the Help Desk if you have questions.

Instructions for those who have used Pennsylvania CDP in the past:

  1. Enter data for the most recently completed fiscal year using your board-approved financial audit/review or year-end financial statements. You must have FOUR YEARS of consecutive data, unless your organization was formed three years ago or less. If you do not have four years of data, your application will not be reviewed.
    1. If your organization is not audited/reviewed, enter data based on board-approved year-end financial statements.
    2. If your organization is an arts program/department within a larger institution, enter data based on internal financial statements of the arts program/department and indicate that you have a parent organization in Section 1.
    3. DO NOT enter project budgets, budgets for future years, or data from incomplete or not-yet-approved audits/reviews/financial statements.

Instructions on how to generate the PCF Funder Report:

  1. On My CDP, go to the Funders Reports section, select the fiscal year for the report and click on “GO”. Click on the link for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund to generate the report and print [or save and upload to the online application].
  2. Review your Funder Report; if you need to make changes, call the Help Desk. Please note that the cover page requires a signature from an officer of your organization.
  3. Include the Funder Report along with your Philadelphia Cultural Fund application materials.
  4. You must have FOUR YEARS of financial data on your Funder Report (unless your organization was formed three years ago or less). If your report does not contain four years of date, your application will not be reviewed.

Please Note: As part of the effort to ensure the accuracy of your data, throughout the year the Pennsylvania CDP Help Desk will review each of your submitted Data Profile(s) and contact you with suggested revisions. It is your responsibility to respond to the Help Desk and to make any necessary changes to the submitted Cultural Data Profile(s). This process will not interfere with your ability to run Funder Reports and apply for grants.

***Please note-we do not require the signature page-do not worry if you submit your application without a signature on the front page of your funder report.

Pennsylvania CDP Resources

Please direct questions concerning the Cultural Data Profile to:

Pennsylvania CDP Help Desk
P: 1-866-21-PACDP
E: help@pacdp.org
The Pennsylvania CDP Help Desk is available Monday-Friday from 9:00am-5:00pm EST.

**Applicants not currently enrolled in PACDP are encouraged to attend a training session specifically for new users. Dates and locations are available on the workshops page.

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