[OMS_MANAGERS] Our Town - grant opportunity

Wed Oct 15 13:40:05 PDT 2014

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FYI – I received this email earlier today & thought it might be of intereste.

http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html (link to grants.gov<http://grants.gov> opportunity)

http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/arts-engagment-cultural-planning-and-design-projects-grant-program-description (link to page shown below)

OUR TOWN: Arts Engagment, Cultural Planning, and Design Projects - Grant Program Description
Arts engagement, cultural planning, and design projects should represent the distinct character and quality of their communities, and be carried out by a local government entity in partnership with a nonprofit organization.
Projects

The Arts Endowment plans to support a variety of  projects across the country in urban and rural communities of all sizes. Please review the list of grants<http://arts.gov/national/our-town/grantees/type> on our website to see the types of projects that have been funded recently through Our Town. You might also want to look at examples of projects in the online storybook of Our Town projects called 'Exploring Our Town<http://arts.gov/exploring-our-town>.' While these grants are illustrative, they represent only a sample of the types of projects that Our Town supports.

Projects should represent the distinct character and quality of their communities, and must reflect the following:
·         A vision for enhancing the livability of the community.
·         A systemic approach to equitable civic development.
·         Support for artists, design professionals, and arts organizations by integrating the arts and design into the fabric of civic life.

Projects may include arts engagement, cultural planning, and design projects such as:

Arts Engagement
Arts engagement projects support artistically excellent artistic production or practice as the focus of creative placemaking work.
·         Innovative programming that fosters interaction among community members, arts organizations, and artists, or activates existing cultural and community assets.
·         Festivals and performances that activate spaces not normally used for such purposes.
·         Public art that improves public spaces and strategically reflects or shapes the physical and social character of a community.

Cultural Planning
Cultural planning projects support the development of artistically excellent local support systems necessary for creative placemaking to succeed.
·         Creative asset mapping.
·         Cultural district planning.
·         The development of master plans or community-wide strategies for public art.
·         Support for creative entrepreneurship.
·         Creative industry cluster/hub development.

Design
Design projects that demonstrate artistic excellence while supporting the development of places where creative activities occur, or where the identity of place is created or reinforced.
·         Design of public spaces, e.g., parks, plazas, landscapes, neighborhoods, districts, infrastructure, bridges, and artist-produced elements of streetscapes.
·         Community engagement activities including design charrettes, design competitions, and community design workshops.
·         Design of rehearsal, studio, or live/work spaces for artists.
·         Design of cultural spaces – new or adaptive reuse.

We understand that creative placemaking projects are often multi-year, large-scale initiatives. Please specify in your application which phase or phases of your project are included in your request for NEA funding. All phases of a project -- except for those for facilities noted below -- are eligible for support.The NEA reserves the right to limit its support of a project to a particular phase(s) or cost(s). All costs included in your Project Budget must be expended during your period of support.

Where appropriate, Our Town applications should demonstrate how the project will align with other place-based federal grant programs and policies, including, but not limited to, those from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), such as Consolidated Plans, Analysis of impediments to Fair Housing Choice, Long Range Transportation Plans, and Asset Management Plans.

If relevant to your project, you will be required to provide information in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act<http://www.epa.gov/Compliance/nepa/> and/or the National Historic Preservation Act<http://www.cr.nps.gov/local-law/nhpa1966.htm>.

Partnerships

A key to the success of creative placemaking is involving the arts in partnership with committed governmental and private sector leadership. All applications must demonstrate a partnership that will provide leadership for the project. These partnerships must involve two primary partners: 1) nonprofit organization, and 2) local government entity, as defined by these guidelines. One of these two primary partners must be a cultural (arts or design) organization. The highest ranking official of the local government is required to submit a formal statement of support designating the project as the only one being submitted for the local government. See "How to Prepare and Submit an Application<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/how-to-prepare-and-submit-an-application>" for more information.

Additional partners are encouraged and may include an appropriate variety of entities such as state level government agencies, foundations, arts organizations and artists, nonprofit organizations, design professionals and design centers, educational institutions, real estate developers, business leaders, community organizations, council of governments, rural planning organizations, transportation agencies, special districts, educational organizations, as well as public and governmental entities.

You may find it helpful to contact your local arts agency as you begin the process within your community.

We Do Not Fund

Funding is not available for:
·         Construction, purchase, or renovation of facilities. (Design fees, community planning, and installation of public art are eligible; however, no Arts Endowment or matching funds may be directed to the costs of physical construction or renovation or toward the purchase costs of facilities or land.)
·         Costs (and their match) to bring a project into compliance with federal grant requirements. This includes environmental or historical assessments or reviews and the hiring of individuals to write assessments or reviews or to otherwise comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and/or the National Historic Preservation Act.
·         Projects for which the selection of artists or art works is based upon criteria other than artistic excellence and merit. Examples include festivals, exhibitions, or publications for which no jury/editorial judgment has been applied.
·         Subgranting or regranting, except for local arts agencies that are designated to operate on behalf of their local governments or are operating units of city or county government. (See more information on subgranting.) Subgranting activity by designated local arts agencies must be directly relevant to the Our Town project activities.
·         Financial awards to winners of competitions.
·         Fund raising or financing activities.
·         General operating support.
·         Seasonal support.
·         Costs for the creation of new organizations.
·         Direct grants to individuals. (The Arts Endowment encourages applicant organizations to involve individual artists in all possible ways.)
·         Individual elementary or secondary schools -- charter, private, or public -- directly. Schools may participate as additional partners in projects for which another eligible organization applies. Local education agencies (school districts) and community colleges can apply on behalf of a local government. If a single school also is the local education agency, as is the case with some charter schools, the school may apply with documentation that supports its status as the local education agency applying on behalf of the local government.
·         State and regional education agencies and institutions.
·         Commercial (for-profit) enterprises or activities.
·         Cash reserves and endowments.
·         Awards to individuals or organizations to honor or recognize achievement.
·         Generally, professional training in degree-granting institutions.
·         Work toward academic degrees and the pursuit of academic careers.
·         Projects that replace arts instruction provided by a classroom teacher or an arts specialist.
·         Literary publishing that does not focus on contemporary literature and/or writers.
·         Generally, publication of books or exhibition of works by the applicant organization's staff, board members, faculty, or trustees.
·         Exhibitions of, and other projects that primarily involve, single, individually-owned, private collections.
·         Expenditures that are related to compensation to foreign nationals and artists traveling to or from foreign countries when those expenditures are not in compliance with regulations issued by the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control. For further information, seehttp://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ or contact the Arts Endowment's Grants & Contracts Office at grants at arts.gov<https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=grants@arts.gov>.
·         Project costs that are supported by any other federal funds or their match.
Intended Outcome: Livability

Through Our Town projects, the Arts Endowment intends to achieve the following outcome from our strategic plan: Livability: American communities are strengthened through the arts.

The anticipated long-term results for Livability projects are measurable community benefits, such as growth in overall levels of social and civic engagement; new avenues for expression and creativity; design-focused changes in policies, laws, and/or regulations; job and/or revenue growth; or positive changes in migration patterns. You will be asked to address the anticipated results in your application. If you receive a grant, you will be asked to provide evidence of those results at the end of your project. Given the nature of Livability projects, benefits are likely to emerge over time and may not be fully measureable during the period of a grant. You will need to provide evidence of progress toward achieving improved livability as appropriate to the project. Before applying, please review the reporting requirements for Livability<http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/draft-fdr-livability-4-20-14.pdf>. We recognize that some projects involve risk, and we want to hear about both your successes and failures. Failures can provide valuable learning experiences, and reporting them will have no effect on your ability to receive NEA funds in the future.

Beyond the reporting requirements for all grantees, selected Our Town grantees may be asked to assist in the collection of additional information that can help the NEA determine the degree to which agency objectives were achieved. For example, Our Town grantees may be asked to participate in surveys or interviews, and/or may be asked to assist in publicizing and promoting these data collection efforts. You may be contacted to provide evidence of project accomplishments including, but not limited to, work samples, community action plans, cultural asset studies, programs, reviews, relevant news clippings, and playbills. Please remember that you are required to maintain project documentation for three years following submission of your final report.

We may publish grantees' reports and products on our website. Please note that all federal grantmaking agencies retain a royalty-free right to use all or a portion of grantees’ reports and products for federal purposes.

Deadline Date

You are required to submit Step 1 of your application electronically through Grants.gov, the federal government’s online application system. The Grants.gov system must receive your validated and accepted application no later than 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time, on December 15, 2014. We strongly recommend that you submit at least 10 days in advance of the deadline to give yourself ample time to resolve any problems that you might encounter. We will not accept late applications.

The Grants.gov Contact Center is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Step 2 of the application will then be due by January 15, 2015, through the NEA GrantsOnline™ System (NEA-GO) (see the "How to Prepare and Submit an Application<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/how-to-prepare-and-submit-an-application>" section for more detail).

TO APPLY
·         Introduction<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/introduction>
·         Application Calendar<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/application-calendar>
·         Arts Engagement, Cultural Planning, and Design Projects
o    Grant Program Description<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/arts-engagment-cultural-planning-and-design-projects-grant-program-description>
o    Award Information<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/arts-engagment-cultural-planning-and-design-projects-award-information>
o    Applicant Eligibility<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/arts-engagment-cultural-planning-and-design-projects-applicant-eligibility>
·         Projects that Build Knowledge About Creative Placemaking
o    Grant Program Description<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/projects-that-build-knowledge-about-creative-placemaking-grant-program-description>
o    Award Information<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/projects-that-build-knowledge-about-creative-placemaking-award-information>
o    Applicant Eligibility<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/projects-that-build-knowledge-about-creative-placemaking-applicant-eligibility>
·         How to Apply
o    How to Prepare and Submit an Application<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/how-to-prepare-and-submit-an-application>
o    Step 1: Submit the SF-424 to Grants.gov<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/step-1-submit-the-sf-424-to-grants-gov>
o    Step 2: Submit Materials to NEA-GO<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/step-2-submit-through-nea-go>
·         Application Review<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/application-review>
·         Award Administration<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/award-administration>
·         Contacts<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/contacts>
·         Other Information<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/other-information>
·         FAQs (for Arts Engagement, Cultural Planning, and Design Projects)<http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/frequently-asked-questions>
RELATED MATERIALS
·         Guidelines Webinars
o    October 1, 2014 archive<http://arts.gov/video/our-town-guidelines-oct-1-2014-webinar>
o    October 6, 2014 archive<http://arts.gov/video/our-town-guidelines-oct-6-2014-webinar>
·         Exploring Our Town<http://arts.gov/exploring-our-town>
·         News<http://arts.gov/national/our-town/press>
·         Grants.gov<http://arts.gov/grantsgov-tips>
·         GAF Tutorial<http://arts.gov/video/nea-online-tutorial-using-grant-application-form-gaf>
·         Sample Application Narratives<http://arts.gov/foia/reading-room/sample-application-narratives-our-town>
·         Grants by Project Type<http://arts.gov/national/our-town/grantees/type>
·         Grants by State<http://arts.gov/national/our-town>
·         Our Town Videos<http://arts.gov/national/our-town/video>
·         NEA ARTS Magazine on Creative Placemaking<http://arts.gov/NEARTS/2012v3-arts-and-culture-core>
·         Creative Placemaking Report<http://arts.gov/publications/creative-placemaking>
·
- See more at: http://arts.gov/grants-organizations/our-town/arts-engagment-cultural-planning-and-design-projects-grant-program-description#sthash.JwwUz6nW.dpuf

Ginger Carter, Grants Management Specialist
National Park Service
State, Tribal and Local Plans and Grants Division
1201 I (Eye) St. NW, Stop 2256
6th Floor, Cube 67
Washington, DC 20005
202-513-7233 (T)
202-371-1794 (F)

Visit the NPS, State, Tribal and Local Plans and Grants new website:
Division home page - http://www.nps.gov/orgs/1623/index.htm
Tribal Preservation Program home page -  http://www.nps.gov/thpo/
Tribal Historic Preservation Office grants home page -  http://www.nps.gov/thpo/grants/<http://www.nps.gov/history/hpg/grants.html>
Tribal Heritage Grants home page -  http://www.nps.gov/thpo/tribal-heritage/index.html

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