Planning & Design
Capital Projects
Arts in Education
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Electronic Media & Film
Folk Arts
Individual Artists
Literature
Museum
Music
Presenting
Special Arts Services
State & Local Partnerships
Decentralization
Theatre
Visual Arts
What kinds of grants are available through the Arts in Education program?
We provide three types of grants:- Support for school and cultural organization partnerships that are focused on in-school work with students in grades pre-K through 12 is available through the Empire State Partnerships (ESP) categories.
- Support for projects that will help to build the capacity of the field at large across New York State is available through the Services to the Field category.
- The General Program Support (GPS) category provides funding for organizations to build their internal capacity to provide the highest quality arts in education programs.
The AIE program’s Local Capacity Building (Regrants) category is an invitational category. Applicants must be invited by AIE program staff in order to apply for support in this area.
My organization is working with a school partner, but we have never received funding from the Arts in Education program. Which category would be most appropriate for us?
If your organization, partnership, or project is new to the AIE program, you should apply in the ESP Project-based Planning category – even if you feel you have completed your planning and you are ready to implement. We feel that ongoing planning is essential, and the Planning category, while allowing for some amount of piloting in the classroom, encourages a continuous focus on planning, reflecting, and refining.How many school partners can I include in my ESP grant request?
Each ESP grant request should include only one school partner. A school partner is an individual school, not a district or region. Applications to the ESP Dissemination category, however, should include more than one school partner.How many requests may I make in each Arts in Education category?
Applicants may submit two requests in the ESP categories. If an applicant requests or receives General Program Support, however, they may not make any requests in the ESP Project-based Planning or Project-based Implementation categories.Applicants may also make one request for General Program Support and one request for a Services to the Field grant. The Council-wide limit of four requests, total, should be taken into consideration when planning the number of Arts in Education requests your organization will make.
How many requests may I make in each Arts in Education category?
Applicants may submit two requests in the ESP categories. If an applicant requests or receives General Program Support, however, they may not make any requests in the ESP Project-based Planning or Project-based Implementation categories.What are the evaluative criteria for the ESP grants?
ESP grants are evaluated based on the extent to which the proposal addresses the characteristics of successful partnerships, which are listed in the Introduction to the AIE guidelines.Helpful hints for answering the application questions are found in pop-up text boxes within the online application. They can be accessed (and printed) by opening the online application and clicking on each question.
Applicants can also find a Partnership Self-Evaluation Tool on the ESP website at www.espartsed.org. This tool can help your partnership get a sense of its strengths and weaknesses, which will aid in your partnership planning efforts and your proposal preparation.
Are there matching and other budgetary requirements for the Arts in Education grants?
Yes. Each ESP request must be matched dollar for dollar with cash. In addition, the school partner must make a significant cash contribution to the budget. In-kind contributions should not be included in the budget.Generally, projects that include a significant cash contribution by the school are considered stronger than those that don’t.
Services to the Field requests do not require a match, but proposals are deemed stronger if they include one.
If my partnership is not yet ready to apply for an ESP grant, are there other grant opportunities that would be more appropriate?
Yes. If your partnership will focus on projects that will consist of fewer than ten artist work sessions per unit of study, you should consider applying to either the School Arts Partnership program (see Partners for Arts Education’s website at www.arts4ed.org) or your region’s Local Capacity Building (LCB) program. Both of these grant opportunities are supported by AIE program dollars and are meant to provide funding and development opportunities for smaller arts in education projects. You can find contact information for the LCB program that serves your school partner’s county on this website in the Arts Resources/Local Arts Funding section.
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