My eyes have gone square. I've been crunching numbers for the past few hours and unlike last time I have had neither Low nor her dairy-free cake to help me through it, I had to settle for a pot of tea and the Book of Mormon soundtrack - bizarrely invigorating to listen to!
It's occurred to me several times before, but more so today, that it would have been hugely helpful to have taken a class on fundraising applications at some point, as it seems to be a crucial part of any creatives existence. They're horrible. They go on for pages and pages and come with PDF's of guidelines and FAQ's and "Advice on How to Complete..." none of which is any use when you're actually writing them.
If you can imagine writing a cover letter for a job and thinking of all the reasons you're perfect for it and putting them into succinct sentences without too much repetition of "responsible" and "hard-working," and managing to finish it off with the correct variation of "yours whatever," but then, realising there's a second application in which you have to document how you'll spend every penny of the wage they probably aren't going to give you anyway, and explain what each expenditure brings you and justify it's cost. If you can imagine, that's what I've been doing today.
Fairly unsuccessfully.
Anyway, hopefully something comes of all this. Something more than my improved Excel sheets and ability to guestimate the cost of everything from printing to performances. We should be, and I certainly am, grateful that any kind of funding for new creative ventures exists at all!
TwentySomething will be sharing our plans for 2017 soon, (once we finalise them!) so keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter for what's coming next!
