How Are Grants Reviewed?
The Council seeks to support artistic work of the highest artistic/cultural merit, and relies heavily upon support materials to make this determination (see What are Supporting Materials section). A well-written grant that clearly articulates the benefit of the project to the Northampton community is favored by the Arts Council. Each board member reviews a copy of your grant. Board members discuss each application and make funding determinations based on three main attributes, in order of importance:
• Artistic/Cultural Merit (0-10 Score Scale)
• Relative Community Impact (0-3 Score Scale)
• Project Feasibility - realistically achievable regarding cost, budget, and scope of project. (0-3 Score Scale)
The Northampton Arts Council reserves the right to accept or reject applications within the stated guidelines and is responsible for making its best judgment of an application's intrinsic value.
The volunteer board members of the Arts Council review each grant. Each board member is assigned a grant category and carefully reads every proposal in that category, following up with the artists for additional information if necessary. Each assigned board member then presents all the grants in his/her category to the entire board during the grant review meeting. After hearing the grant presentation, each board member scores each grant proposal in three categories: Artistic or Cultural Merit (0-10), Community Impact (0-3), and Feasibility (0-3). Each Board member’s score for each grant is calculated and averaged into a total score.
