A reminder/notice to new followers: in addition to this blog I also have a What Betty Knows Facebook page where I post additional tidbits that are useful but not necessarily complex enough to require a full blog post. Follow/”Like” me there (and also check “get notifications”) to catch extra tips like these:
Artists, musicians, writers and other members of the creative community rarely “make it big” in a commercial/financial sense. That doesn’t necessarily discourage us from making art, but it would be nice to have some financial support.
While there are many local, national, and international sources of grant money for creatives, one look at some of the applications scares off many artists who are great at making art but not comfortable with figuring out budgets or writing snappy descriptions of their proposals.
A friend who was recently appointed to her city’s cultural council posted on Facebook that all of her artistic friends should really consider applying for grants even though the thought is intimidating. I posted a bunch of helpful links in the comments, which I am reposting here for future reference, and will add more as I come across them:
You’ve seen the emails and Facebook posts from your friends:
Frequently followed by a request to repost/forward to all of your friends.
But before you do that, take this step in order to avoid passing on an Urban Legend:
Most businesses that offer customer service phone numbers would much rather you conduct all of your interactions with their automated services (e.g., “press 1 for your balance, press 2 to make a payment, …” etc.). Reaching a real human being to address your “none of those choices” issue can be difficult. Two standard techniques that work less often these days are:
♦ Press “0”
♦ Don’t press or say anything in hopes of being eventually transferred to a human
If neither of those work, and the menu does not give you an option to contact a real person, your next step is to visit the website GetHuman
GetHuman is a free crowd-sourced information site. Enter the name of a company or a product in their search field to get both the best phone number and exactly how to manipulate the call menu to reach a person. For instance I got this searching for Bank of America Click to see larger image):
Good luck in your search for humans!