Resources For Writing Grant Proposals

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:

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How To Improve Chances For A Big Powerball Win

First, let me point out that your chance of winning the big prize in Powerball or any other multi-state lottery game is really, REALLY slim. The odds for Powerball are 1 in 175.2 million!

However, the flip side is that someone will eventually win the jackpot that continues to increase until won. And that someone bought a ticket. So if you are going to throw some money into the game here’s how to RELATIVELY increase your chance of winning big:

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Check What Amazon Is Selling You

[I previously posted this information on my Facebook Page – it was quite popular so adding it to my blog during holiday shopping season seems relevant.]

I keep some items in my Amazon account’s “saved for later” queue when I don’t need them immediately but know I will want later. This was the case for the best-priced listing of 24-count box of Duracell Procell AA batteries.

battery

When I next decided I needed more batteries I logged into my Amazon account, went to the “saved for later” area, and in the batteries listing clicked “move to cart.” Fortunately before I clicked “buy” I looked at the item in the cart and realized it was NOT the box from a non-Amazon vendor for $11.44+free shipping, but instead was an Amazon Prime vendor for $1 more!

I do have Amazon Prime, but the Prime-eligible items are not always the best deal even with its free 2-day shipping. And as far as I know there is no editable setting which instructs Amazon to alter non-Prime choices to Prime. In fact, when looking at an item’s description they will sometimes tell me there is a non-Prime seller with a better price or quicker delivery.

I deleted the item from my cart and tried the move a couple more times – the same thing happened: the item as it appeared in “saved for later” was not what was in my cart once I clicked “move to cart.

The solution I found was to leave the unwanted, more expensive choice in my cart – THEN I was able to go to the less expensive item’s listing, add it to my cart, and after that delete the unwanted one from the cart and purchase the wanted version.

So always double-check that the item in your cart is from the seller with the price that you chose!

General Business Gig Booking Considerations – Weddings

Some time ago I posted a tip about how to determine the going rate to charge for a GB (general business) gig, such as a wedding, party, etc. But there is more to being a successful GB musician than setting a price. Here are some questions to ask and elements to consider when requested to perform for a wedding or other ceremony – this is based on my reply to a recent wedding inquiry, but much of it is applicable to other events:

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