DISQUS

the bounder: The End of the Line

  • @MentalArtsBrum · 5 months ago
    My experience of putting in bids is that you have to clearly demonstrate the need for the project. What immediately springs to mind to me is Birmingham's 'Buzzin' About' project which helps people with mental health difficulties use public transport. Could you work with this group, and with a partner organisation to realise the project? I can put you in touch if you like. It's a good idea. You have great ideas. Don't get disheartened. You just have to tick the funders' boxes, tis all.
  • Jon Bounds · 5 months ago
    Cheers Deborah. To be honest tho' I don't want to tick funders boxes, just do stuff - which is perhaps why funded work isn't for me. Something to think about, indeed.
  • @MentalArtsBrum · 5 months ago
    . . . I don't mean 'tick boxes' as get all cynical about it and stuff, and I certainly wouldn't advocate CHASING pots of money, but if it's something you believe in it can be really positive to see where your ideas fit into the bigger scheme of things . . . and can have a really powerful effect on everyone connected to it, especially when you see other people take ownership of your idea and watch it become something else you couldn't even have dreamed of. For instance, the mapping projects you details above, including the emotional mapping, that would be SO powerful if it were used in the context of dementia, or as a cultural studies / community cohesion type thing.
  • brendadada · 5 months ago
    Yeah, just get on and do it. Applying for funding is just one hurdle. If you get it there will be strings, including forced timescales, ongoing monitoring and evluation criteria, and boring form filling. All that can be enough to make the funding cost more in time than you get in money.

    Plus often, it becomes their project, not yours, logo-laden and corporate looking. Arts Lottery used to be mildly better at that than Arts Council.