GUIDELINES
Welcome
As promised, the 2008 application is different. The most marked difference is that applicants will be participating in the Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project (PACDP). Simply put, PACDP collects financial and other quantitative data from arts and cultural organizations all over the state.
Once you have entered your data into PACDP's website, you simply press a button to produce a report which will become part of your PCF Application.
If you already participate in PACDP, your information is probably already there, and all you need to do is request the report, which you will print and submit as part of your application.
If you are new to PACDP, once you have entered your information you will be all set to apply for additional grants from other funders who participate.
We have scheduled a number of application workshops, and workshops for PACDP. However, if you cannot attend a workshop, please don't hesitate to call the PCF office 215-683-2048 for assistance.
Statement Of Purpose
The Philadelphia Cultural Fund is a non-profit corporation established by Philadelphia's Mayor and City Council in 1991 to support and enhance the cultural life and vitality of the City of Philadelphia and its residents. The Fund promotes arts and culture as engines of social, educational and economic development in Philadelphia. Grants are made from the City budget allocation to the Cultural Fund for operating support of Philadelphia-based arts and cultural organizations.
Goals
Among the overall goals of the Cultural Fund are:
-to provide general operating support funds to serve Philadelphia-based arts and cultural institutions and organizations;
-to advocate the value of the arts in daily life and their importance to the growth and future of the community;
-to recognize the contributions of Philadelphia-based organizations, both new and established, that have a demonstrated track record to service, and the financial management and programming capacity to continue providing service;
-to recognize and nurture artistic quality;
-to encourage and increase opportunities for involvement and participation in arts and cultural activities by culturally diverse constituencies;
-to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of Philadelphia and encourage a sense of pride and commitment in the city.
Applicant Eligibility
Organizations located in Philadelphia County 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-related.
2. Official office, place of business operations and programs are 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.
3. A demonstrated commitment to provide arts and culture to the residents of the City of Philadelphia.
4. 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).
5. Has 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.
6. Must have programs available to the public (OK to charge for them) and attended by a broad range of participants. Examples: a library collection of valuable documents not open to the public for study or research; a performing arts program available only to professionals.
7. Non discriminatory employment and personnel practices.
8. New and/or emerging organizations are eligible for funding if they meet each of the following guidelines:
a. The organization has a demonstrated track record of service.
b. The organization has the capacity to carry out its stated programming goals through the support of staff, board and/or volunteers.
c. The organization may use a local fiscal sponsor for 3 years. 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).
9. Organizations will 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 a Philadelphia cultural organization with 501(c) (3) tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
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.
-Institutions that receive annual line item support from the City budget.
- Organizations whose offices and/or place of business are located outside the City of Philadelphia.
-Organizations whose programs are held primarily outside the City of Philadelphia.
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 the Philadelphia dance field. A panel is convened for each category.
Each applicant self-selects the category in which they wish to apply. If you have questions about which category your organization belongs, please call the PCF office for assistance. Categories include:
Art Center/Community Center - presents exhibitions, performances, readings, workshops, lectures, demonstrations, classes or other related arts activities.
Arts Service Organization/Arts in Education Organization - provides services to artists or arts organizations in the areas of their program, artifacts, general management, resource networks and advocacy.
Dance - includes the creation and/or presentation of ballet, modern and experimental, jazz, ethnic dance and/or dance instruction.
Historic Sites - site devoted to preservation, conservation, documentation and educational interpretation.
Museums - institution devoted to acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical or artistic value.
Music - includes the creation and/or presentation of a wide variety of musical styles through productions, concerts and performances, and/or music instruction.
Presenting/Multi-disciplinary/Literary Arts - Presenting: presents artists in performance and/or residency settings, including single presentations, tours, productions, concerts and performances. Multi-disciplinary: integrates more than one artistic discipline or is involved in interdisciplinary collaboration of artforms/works. Literary Arts: promotes literature through readings and workshops as well as the development of small presses which publish and distribute works of local, national and international writers.
Theater -professional, community, experimental and children's theater productions and organizations; also includes script production development projects.
Visual Arts/Media Arts - Visual Arts: includes the creation, exhibition and documentation of the visual arts, both historical and contemporary. Media Arts: encourages 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 3 years or less.
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, by category, in various areas of the city, to assist you with completing your application. If you cannot attend the workshop in your discipline, but need assistance, please contact the PCF office, (215)-683-2048. First time applicants are required to attend a workshop.
How your Application is Reviewed
Applications must be received in the office, 1515 Arch Street - 12th floor by 5:00 PM on the date of the deadline. Late applications will not be accepted. If you are hand delivering your application on the date of the deadline, please leave yourself plenty of time to allow for poor traffic and other mishaps. The security guard in the lobby will not allow you to enter after 5:00 PM.
Applications will first be reviewed by the staff, to check that the application is complete and that organizations have applied in the correct category. If your organization fits into more than one category, select only one which best describes your programs. If you cannot decide on a category, please contact the office for assistance. Applications that are missing more than 25% of the required materials will not be reviewed. You will receive an email indicating if your application is complete or deficient. This correspondence is not confirmation of grant eligibility. It only assures the application was received an initially reviewed.
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 will 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 over all 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. Perhaps they attended one of your programs or performances. 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 member of the board or on a committee; being 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 score. The final score is used by a statistician to calculate the grant. Applicants who score below 60 will not receive a grant.
**Panelists do not determine the grant amount**
How your Grant Amount is Calculated
Each fiscal year, the City Council of Philadelphia allocates an amount to the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Last year, fiscal 2007, that amount was $2,200,000. This amount may be larger or smaller depending on the city budget. Generally, approximately ninety-five percent (95%) of the allocation goes toward grants to arts and culture organizations in Philadelphia.
Each eligible organization that applies is reviewed by a panel and given a score. Panelists do not determine the grant amount. The score is put into a mathematical formula that determines the amount of the grant. This is how the formula works:
1) Each organization begins with a base grant of $3,000.
2) Then, depending on your organization's budget, the base grant is adjusted up or down. If you have a very large budget, then the $3,000 is adjusted upward by several thousand dollars. If you have a small budget, the $3,000 is adjusted by a few hundred dollars. This does not guarantee that you will receive a grant of $3,000. A very complicated algorithm (math process) adjusts the $3,000 base to your budget. As the size of your budget increases, the incremental adjustments decrease. In other words, if your budget is $50,000 your adjustment may go to $7,300. If your budget is $975,000, your adjustment may go to $9,500. The $975,000 is almost 20 times larger than $50,000, but the grant $9,500 is not 20 times larger than $7,300. As the budget gets larger, the adjustment amount gets smaller. If this were on a graph, the line on the graph would get "flatter" as the budget size grows.
3) The next step is to take all the panel scores and "normalize" them. By "normalize" we mean to make them more similar between the panels. Say the dance panel scored everything between 80 and 100; that would mean that the score in the middle, or median, was 90. Say the music panel scored everything between 70 and 90; that would mean that the score in the middle, or median, was 80. Normalizing the scores makes the 90 from the dance panel and the 80 from the music panel have the same weight in the scoring process.
4) For the fourth step, your score is applied to the formula. This part of the formula has the most impact. If you scored high, the grant amount will go up. If you scored low, the grant amount will go down. It is at this point that your grant may go down below $3,000 - particularly if you are a small organization, or if you received a final score below 75.
5) Final step, the Culture Fund has a policy that organizations may receive a grant of up to 30% of their budget. If necessary, this 30% "cap" is applied at this point in the process.
These are the steps of the grant calculation:
|
$3,000 |
Adjust For Budget Size |
Normalize Between Panels |
Apply Score Cap |
|
|
New partnership with the Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project (PACDP)
This year marks the first year that the Philadelphia Cultural Fund is engaging in a new partnership. The PACDP is a collaborative project of public and private funders throughout the state of Pennsylvania. Through PACDP, access to reliable data about the cultural sector will enhance both individual organizational capacity as well as the overall effectiveness of the nonprofit cultural community in our state. Further, applicants applying to more than one of the participating grantmakers will only need to complete this form once each year.
Uses and benefits of the PACDP Web site and data include:
-Information for participating nonprofit organizations for use in benchmarking and capacity-building.
-Information for the cultural sector for the purposes of policy development, programs and public relations.
-Information for participating grantmakers for use in their application process.
New Users are asked to complete the PACDP for their two most recently completed fiscal years. Instructions on the Web site will guide you through the process. You will also have access to online training and a Help Desk.
Participation in the Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project (PACDP) is required for all Philadelphia Cultural Fund applications.
PACDP is intended to benefit the field by providing a means by which to analyze and report on the impact, assets, and needs of the state's cultural community. This powerful tool will enable participating organizations to benchmark their progress and better equip advocates to make the case for arts and culture, and will facilitate improved grant making and policy development by the funding partners.
The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, along with other public and private funders in Pennsylvania, now requires applicants to complete a Cultural Data Profile through the PACDP Web site (www.pacdp.org).
-In order to complete the Cultural Data Profile, organizations must first register at the PACDP site by creating an organizational login ID and password. Information for the Cultural Data Profile is organized by fiscal year-end and data is only entered for completed fiscal years for which an approved financial audit or review exists. Organizations that are not audited or reviewed will enter data based on approved year-end financial statements.
-Applicants are asked to provide two years of financial and organizational data the first time they complete the Cultural Data Profile. (Going forward, groups will only need to provide one year of data.)
-Upon completion of the Cultural Data Profile, applicants should go to the "Funder Reports" section of the PACDP Web site and produce the pre-defined report for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund grant application. Applicants must print the report, which is to be included with application materials.
The completion of the Cultural Data Profile will require an investment of time. A number of resources will be available to help applicants, including a Help Desk and online traini
Applicants should direct questions concerning the Cultural Data Profile to:
PACDP Help Desk:
Friday from 9:00am - 5:00pm
Toll Free: (866) 21-PACDP or 866-217-2237
Email: help@pacdp.org.
Web: www.pacdp.org
**Applicants not currently enrolled in PACDP are encouraged to attend a training session specifically for new users. Dates and locations are as follows:
Thursday, August 14th – 10:00am
Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project (PACDP)
Arts and Business Council of Greater Philadelphia
200 South Broad Street – Suite 700
Tuesday, August 26th 2:00pm
Pennsylvania Cultural Data Project (PACDP)
Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage
1608 Walnut Street – 18th Floor
2008-2009 The Philadelphia Cultural Fund
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