Feeling the Funding Squeeze
Are you feeling the squeeze on finding funding? Well, us too. You are not alone. It has been an incredibly difficult period of time to find funding and we wanted to front up and be here to show you how difficult it has been for us to secure funding.
We have been in process to fund the Communications Role for Song Leaders Network Aotearoa over the last year. We are down two rounds in and it has not been successful. But a little perspective. We are a national body organisation and so there are only a few places we can apply for funding to be of service to our entire membership.
Our most recent application to the Lotteries Commission, the Committee had $9,541,952 available to distribute and considered 215 requests totalling $24,339,977 for this funding round.
If you look at the numbers alone, that is triple the requests for the amount of the money they were able to provide on this round.
There are always things to take away from an application process. The biggest thing being?
Did you make sure to reflect the language of the application?
Did you provide everything that was asked of you?
Did you communicate clearly about the vision you were holding for the project you are applying for funding for?
Sometimes none of these things matter and you can just be one of too many people applying for funding in that round and it can be a matter of refining your process for the next round.
Alison Talmage and I recently attended the Creative Spaces Conference hosted by Arts Access Aotearoa. Funding was presented on in multiple workshops during the event over 2 days. It was mentioned multiple times the numbers of applications have far exceeded the monetary amount people have been able to give and it has been like that for quite a while, it’s not you we are creative rich and a financially overstretched.
Meaning we are in a time in our country where we are not feeling resourced and a lot of us are needing to go outward to see where we can find our funding to help support the infrastructure of our networks and our groups. This is kind of a false illusion as well. We need to be more mindful about the flow of money across the services we provide, what are we doing with it and what do we want it to do? Is it being used to it’s fullest purpose?
Are their systems in place to self support or is it a drain of ever growing costs going out? Is this the woah moment?
What about for those of you with Committee groups, do you have infrastructure to support professional development, membership and the upkeep of costs for venue etc?
Meghan Thorn from Exult would let you know that regardless of a time of recession. This is the highest period of time in our history for donation. If people believe in your passion projects they get on board with you, not only just donation but sponsorship can make all the difference. Whether or not you are able to go between surviving and thriving. Each of these requires a strategy to grow and support the people giving income flow in this area.
So maybe it's a matter of perspective. The people you have around you, the time you have to build a plan and implement it with the willingness to create that space.
The Arts Foundation want you know the arts is on the rise and why. It has never been more popular than it is currently. Never in more high need for our rangatahi, for our well-being and for creating social impact. It is the most important thing you can be doing to create social change and stability if it is your calling so.
Don't lose hope if you don't get the funding you need. It's about having a conversation, finding connection, and figuring out the next steps to making it possible to build the future you want. So that you can keep the cool things happening.
