Frequently Asked Questions

A few application questions are slightly different based on whether you apply as an individual or as an organization. Your answer to this question will make sure we’re asking the appropriate version of those questions. 

If you are applying on behalf of an organization or government, the contact information section will populate options for Organization, Location, Primary Contact, Primary Signatory, Primary Communications Contact. Once you begin typing in the text fields, options will auto-populate from Fluxx based on people you have registered through Fluxx in your organization. If you choose to list the same person for Primary Contact, Signatory, and Communications Contact, any communications from Fluxx will be received three times to the same contact. If you want three different contacts to display for Primary Contact, Primary Signatory, and Primary Communications Contact, then you will need to register three different people in Fluxx and ensure that they are all registered as a part of the same organization. For more detailed instructions on how to register in Fluxx, please see the section “Technology” far below. Usually, the Primary Contact is the person who is most involved with the application process, such as project director/coordinator or development officer. The Primary Signatory is likely the Executive Director of an organization, and the Primary Communications Contact is the person who manages communications and/or media at an organization.

If you are applying as an individual, you will select the box that says “Please select this box if you are applying as an individual” and as you begin to type your name, it should appear and auto-populate.

At the open call phase, responses to this question will only be reviewed by staff to gain a better understanding of the proposed project. If invited to submit a full proposal, you will be asked to submit a more detailed project budget.

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At the open call phase, responses to this question will only be reviewed by staff to gain a better understanding of the proposed project. In general, responses to this question will provide a way for us to quickly understand the financial scale of the request alongside the activities and full financial scale of the project. Consider including in-kind dollars or funding from other sources in your total project budget. Imagine, if your project was all being paid for in cash, how many dollars would it cost total? You are encouraged to include travel expenses (such as travel and leadership development) in your total project budget as well as any expenses related to the technical assistance and capacity building you may need. This is especially true if you expect these activities to continue after ArtPlace funds have been spent.

We have a few additional questions for projects that involve permanent construction or purchasing property. Your answer here makes sure those questions appear later in the application. If you answer “yes” to this question, that means you are requesting “capital” funds for this project. If you answer “no” to this question, that means you are only requesting “programming” funds.

We know some projects will begin before ArtPlace funding is received and/or end after our resources are used. In your response to this question we want to understand by when you expect to use ArtPlace resources that we expect to disburse on January 1, 2018. In other words, when do you expect all ArtPlace funds would be spent by?

If your project is taking place at a single address, then you should select single site. If your project is taking place in more than more address within a neighborhood, city, county or region; select multi-site.

We understand that projects can take place at many scales, ranging from single sites, corridors, or parks, to entire neighborhoods, cities, or regions. At the full proposal stage, applicants will have the opportunity to provide up to ten locations that are central to or representative of the project. At this stage of the application process, however, we ask that applicants provide only one location. The response to this question will support us in determining which resources in our budget this project may be eligible for.

We require a valid mailing address or street intersection for each location so that we can source U.S. Census data about the projects locations in which we invest. If there is no known or associated mailing address or street intersection for a location, provide the nearest approximation in valid mailing address or intersection format. In other words, if you plug the address into google maps, and a map doesn’t show up, it isn’t a valid address.

In the table above, we ask you about the population of the site you listed. The number of people living in the project’s focus area is also of interest to ArtPlace. We’re looking for the population of the census-designated place in which this project will take place.

Similarly, we ask “how would you describe the community where your project will take place?” The options are Urban, Suburban, and Rural. ArtPlace does not have formal criteria or definitions for these terms; we’re interested in knowing how applicants describe their own community. 

Your answer to this question must be brief. Imagine this is your “escalator pitch”. What are the most important aspects someone must know about this project that will get their attention? If you are selected as a finalist, this description will be used in ArtPlace communications materials.

ArtPlace defines community as a group of people related by geography. Your description should include things like:

• geographic boundaries,
• who the people are in this place (this description could include subjective and objective information like: how do you engage with these people, what is the total population, what is the average age, race, and ethnicity in this place),
• the primary local employers and industries and a description of the physical (natural and built) environment.

Responses to this question are used to better understand the focus of your project. As ArtPlace explored the world of planning and development, we realized that this field tends to organize itself across ten sectors and five kinds of “player” (people/organizations) working within those ten sectors. As a result of what we learned, ArtPlace uses this community development matrix to organize the various sectors and community members working in the field of creative placemaking. To learn more about how we define these sectors please review our blog here. ArtPlace is looking for a range of projects across planning and development sectors. In selecting a spread of projects this year, the projects we select for funding will not fall into just one sector.

We understand that community projects are multidimensional, and may often be working across several community development sectors. However, in order to understand the field, some categorization is useful at times. For our process, the applications that tend to be the most competitive:

• clearly frame their response within the sector identified in the previous question,
• and then, clearly describe a single planning and development challenge within it when responding to this narrative question.

The response to this question will also need to be referenced when responding to questions about what will be different at the end of your project or how will the community know that change is happening?

Your answer to this question will determine how many artistic fields you choose to list from dropdown menus in questions 12a, 12b, and 12c. You may choose up to three different artistic fields.

We know that many organizations and people have different classifications for the types of artistic practices that exist in arts and culture, and ArtPlace has attempted to organize these through nine primary fields in this arts and culture matrix. We recognize that many projects will use a wide variety of artistic fields in any given project. ArtPlace believes that each artistic field has something to offer planning and development. As such, it is important that you identify one primary field that will be used for this project please select it. As ArtPlace begins to research if particular artistic fields lend themselves to addressing specific community development challenges, we are using this information in your application to better understand what trends exist. With this in mind, we have omitted the option to select “other” for your primary artistic field, however, you are able to choose “other” for your secondary and/or tertiary artistic field (for questions 12b and 12c).

If you are working in a multidisciplinary project, please select the secondary artistic fields that will be deployed. In a response to Question 13, applicants will have the ability to be more detailed about the many kinds of arts and culture that may be used and how they will be deployed.

If you are working in a multidisciplinary project, please select the tertiary artistic fields that will be deployed. In a response to Question 13, applicants will have the ability to be more detailed about the many kinds of arts and culture that may be used and how they will be deployed.

Please describe the role artists and arts and culture will play in the planning, implementation, and learning and documentation process of this project. In our definition of creative placemaking, the “creative” simply invites artists and arts organizations to join their neighbors in shaping communities’ futures; not necessarily in making places more creative. While building a theater, museum, studio, or workspace is great and necessary in many places, the goal of creative placemaking is not, necessarily, to activate, build, or rehabilitate creative spaces as an end unto itself.

When replying to this question, please reference the response provided in Question 13. The outcomes of your project, once it is completed, should relate back to the community development sector and the challenge or opportunity you articulated earlier in your application. Tell us about the benchmarks you will look for, and the things that will be visible, tangible, and/or understood in the community when this project is complete. Visible examples are often something that has changed in the built environment and that people can see. Tangible examples can take the form of plans and deliverables developed as a part of this project. When we mention “understanding” we’re referring to the feelings, conversations, and social dynamics in the community. These are over simplifications, and we still believe it is important to articulate how will the leadership of this project know when they have accomplished what they set out to do.

The questions in this section are slightly different based on whether you apply as an individual or as an organization. Your answer to this question will make sure we’re asking the appropriate version of those questions. 

Responses to this (these) question(s) provide us with an indication of ongoing demand for resources to support creative placemaking projects.

Responses to this (these) question(s) tell us more about your interest in and engagement with the National Creative Placemaking Fund.

Responses to this (these) question(s) tell us more about your interest in and engagement with the National Creative Placemaking Fund.

Responses to this (these) question(s) tell us more about your interest in and engagement with the National Creative Placemaking Fund.

A few application questions are slightly different based on whether you apply as an individual or as an organization. Your answer to this question will make sure we’re asking the appropriate version of those questions.

ArtPlace wants to learn from the many ways that individual artists lead creative placemaking projects in various contexts. Responses to this question will further support our understanding of these trends.

ArtPlace is incredibly interested in finding out if any trends exist in the types of organizations that initiate creative placemaking projects. Responses to this question will further support our ability to share out with the field the strengths that various types of organizations may have in this work.

ArtPlace is interested in the role of Native and Tribal Governments in the creative placemaking field and would like to know whether you’re applying on behalf of one. 

In some cases, organizations may want to tackle a challenge or opportunity in a sector that is outside of their primary body of work. We’re curious about whether that’s the case for your organization.

ArtPlace wants to learn from the many ways that arts organizations can lead creative placemaking projects in various contexts. Responses to this question will further support our understanding of these trends.

ArtPlace is interested in the role of colleges and universities in the creative placemaking field and would like to know whether you’re applying on behalf of one.

ArtPlace will not be evaluating the quality of the video production. Feel free to submit videos shot with a simple camera phone.

We highly prefer video links that do not require a password, however, if your video requires a password, you must include it in the appropriate field.

This video is a chance to creatively show-case what makes your team, project, and community unique. Please take no more than 3 minutes to informally tell us about this project, show us the community and please do not repeat the details you have written in this application. ArtPlace is only looking for visual and audio information that enhances our understanding of the project and the community in which it will take place.

This map should be a visual depiction of the community described in question 11. Maps may be anywhere along a continuum of hand drawn to printed from geographic information systems such as google maps. Please be sure to draw the boundaries that will designate the geographic community where this project will take place. You will likely want to include labels identifying important locations as they relate to this project. It is also helpful if some labels are provided for important landmarks outside the boundaries so that we can understand the community in a greater context.

We have found that most successful community based projects incorporate a diverse set of partners. Partnerships are required at the full application stage and are required in order to be selected to receive funds from ArtPlace America. Partnerships are not a requirement at the initial application stage.

Process in which arts and culture play an intentional and integrated role in place-based community planning and development that is human-centric, comprehensive, and locally informed. The “creative” simply invites artists and arts organizations to join their neighbors in shaping communities’ futures; not necessarily in making places more creative.

A group of people related by geography, whether a block, neighborhood, town, city, or region. Applicants should be able to draw the boundaries around their community on a map. An applicant should draw the boundaries at the scale at which engagement, participation, and change is manageable. If the boundaries are drawn too large, it may be hard to believe that impact is possible for everyone within them. If the boundaries are drawn to small, it may raise questions about the unanticipated impacts a project may have on the people left outside them. A community of affinity (i.e. a community of basket-weavers) is not a community defined by geography, so it would not bode well in our application process.

Community planning and development takes many different forms, and in the spirit of making the world digestible and easier to understand, ArtPlace has developed this 5x10 matrix to map our understanding of how this field traditionally organizes itself.

ArtPlace often refers to the National Endowment for the Arts’ working definition, from its How Art Works publication, of art as “an act of creative expression done within the confines of a set of known or emerging practices and precedence that is intended to communicate richly to others.” Culture is often based in tradition, and may manifest in language, food, music, and much more. ArtPlace intentionally uses a broad definition of arts and culture so that we can support all kinds of work, strategies, approaches.

Everybody and anybody is eligible to apply. Yes anyone! This includes, and is not limited to, a grandmother, a local mosque, a private developer, a local nonprofit, and a tribal government.

Yes! Anyone can apply! ArtPlace will consider applications from previously funded organizations for new projects. If your organization or project has previously received funding from ArtPlace, you’re only eligible to submit an application once a final report has been submitted and approved by ArtPlace staff.

Yes, everybody and anybody is eligible to apply. Yes anyone! All local, regional, and state governing bodies are eligible to submit applications.

No, there is no minimum or maximum operating budget requirement. Everyone can apply! ArtPlace does not require a minimum number of years of operations since incorporation.

Applicants may only submit one application per year. Should more than one application be submitted for the same project and/or by the same organization, all of the applications will be disqualified.

Yes, an organization may be listed as a partner on one (or multiple) application(s) and submit a separate application for a completely different project. If a partner registers and applies for the same project, all applications will be disqualified.

ArtPlace is able to structure agreements with individuals, for profits or any other entity. If you choose to work with a fiscal agent, it should be because it’s your preference. We don’t require that information at the initial application stage. Fiscal agents may apply separately for their own project. Please instruct anyone applying that may use you as a fiscal agent NOT to register you as the applicant for their project. 

There is no required match. Despite not requiring a match, ArtPlace values its investments’ ability to leverage additional federal, regional, and local public/private funding.

No, ArtPlace will only fund projects located in the U.S and all U.S. territories.

Yes. Projects located in American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are eligible to receive funding.

Applications are encouraged from all 50 states and U.S. territories, and ArtPlace will fund in any community. 

In addition, several of ArtPlace’s foundation partners have deep commitments to their local and regional communities. Approximately 50% of the resources to be disbursed in 2018 has been provided by funders with geographic priorities, and as a result, ArtPlace staff will identify strong initial applications that propose projects in the following geographies to be invited to submit a full proposal: the state of Massachusetts; Greater Minneapolis—St. Paul, MN; the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and 23 Native Nations which share that geography, rural communities throughout: Arizona, Iowa, the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, the cities of Akron, OH; Charlotte, NC; Detroit, MI; Macon, GA; Miami, FL; Philadelphia, PA; San Jose, CA; St. Paul, MN. We continue to expand our funding with the goal of supporting the broadest possible geographic array of communities.

Yes, communities of all sizes are encouraged to submit applications. In 2016, rural communities represented 8 of the 29 projects (28%), and accounted for 29% of dollars provided to projects.

Yes, the scope of a project can be regional. Regional projects should be able to demonstrate the effect of their work on everyone inside the boundaries they draw to define their community.

We encourage submissions from ALL artistic fields. 

Audiences tend to be communities that are primarily united by a particular interest (e.g. annual subscribers to the local theater company). Creative Placemaking is focused on people that are distinctly united by geography. While there may be overlap across audience members and community, we’re specifically looking to define community by being able to place boundaries on a map. Most audiences are far broader than these types of geographic limitations and, in those cases, are often not competitive in our process.

Yes, they’re eligible! Funding from our partner foundations, federal agencies (including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)), and banks will not impact eligibility to receive funding from ArtPlace.

Yes, ArtPlace funds can be used for all of these types of projects or a combination of these activities.

No. As long as there is a long-term commitment that allows the project to fulfill its strategic goals. We do believe site control is an important factor in creative placemaking projects.

There are no restrictions in terms of property ownership for ArtPlace’s program. Municipally owned buildings, a commercial space, as well as nonprofit ownership are all eligible for funding.

Yes, projects that are working to identify and acquire properties are eligible. Answering “yes” to question five indicates that you are requesting “capital” funds.

Yes, fees for all types of individuals involved in the project are eligible and highly encouraged, such as prevailing/living wages for artists.

Salaries for administration, project management, and fundraising are all allowed. 

ArtPlace America does not anticipate investments in research through this program. ArtPlace has a set of research strategies and you can click here to learn more about them. If you project has documentation and evaluation expenses, those are of course eligible.

Toolkits and field building activities will not be funded through our National Creative Placemaking Fund. 

As has been mentioned before, and likely comes as no surprise, the four points of our definition for creative placemaking are our criteria. As a reminder, great initial applications clearly and concisely communicate:

1. A description of their geographic community.
2. A community planning and development challenge or opportunity that the stakeholders would like to address.
3. How arts and culture will address the specific challenge or opportunity.
4. How will things be visible, tangible, and felt in the community to know that community development change is happening (at the same level/scale of geography as described for their community)?

The following criteria will be used to evaluate each proposal:

1. Provides a clear description of a geographic community.
2. Clearly defines a place based community development challenge or opportunity this project will address.
3. Describes a clear and compelling way that arts and culture will be deployed to address this specific community development challenge/opportunity.
4. Clearly describes the community development change that will happen as a result of this project (at the same level/scale of geography as described their community)

Please visit the National Creative Placemaking Fund page on the ArtPlace website to read through our scoring criteria rubric that we share with our reviewers so you can get a more robust understanding of how applications will be scored.

A complete listing of ArtPlace-funded projects can be found here. We encourage all applicants to submit their unique ideas. It is important not to attempt to replicate a project that has already been funded. Successful applicants clearly express responses to the application question as they relate to their distinctive place.

Partnerships are REQUIRED if an applicant is invited to submit a full proposal in order to receive funding from Artplace. At the open call stage, ArtPlace does not require partnerships to be in place. Partners may include and are not limited to local residents, business owners, a religious or spiritual organization, nonprofits, developers, and/or local government.

ArtPlace is most interested in cross-sector partnerships rooted in shared values and goals for a community. If the partner has a role in the planning and implementation of your project, then it is likely an important partnership.

There is no preference for programs that are scalable or replicable. 

Last year ArtPlace funded approximately 2% of the almost 1400 applications submitted (29 projects).

Each application will be reviewed by three (3) external reviewers. The external colleagues will be a combination of individuals with experience in arts and culture, community organizing, planning and development, and creative placemaking. Our foundation partners will also provide insights and support throughout the process. ArtPlace’s Executive Director will ultimately approve the projects invited to submit a full proposal.

Given the large number of applications for this program and limited staff capacity, ArtPlace is not able to provide individualized feedback or panel comments for applications.

Given the large number of applications we receive each year, ArtPlace staff will respond to email inquiries as bandwidth allows and cannot be available to speak by phone.

No, we will not accept or review letters of support.

Decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis. The National Creative Placemaking Fund generally provides support between $50,000 and $500,000 for individual projects.

In previous rounds of funding, ArtPlace awarded some projects the full amount requested and some projects at a level lower than the amount requested. We anticipate the same will apply to this round.

No, ArtPlace has made (and may continue to make) multiple awards in any given com- munity.

In order to accommodate all applicants, ArtPlace has recorded this video on the guidelines. ArtPlace will also host three open webinars where specific questions may be asked during the question and answer period of the session. Please review webinar dates by clicking here.

Yes, the online application has an option to save a draft prior to submission. The online application DOES NOT ‘auto-save’ your work. As a result, we strongly encourage you to save often. ArtPlace cannot be responsible for lost data due to user or software glitches in the system. We also strongly encourage applicants to save a copy of their work with the provided worksheet on a work or personal computer.

If you already registered in Fluxx last year, you can use the same username and password. If you haven’t yet signed up for Fluxx, follow the instructions below.

Please go here to download registration instructions from the menu on the left-hand side of the page.

Please allow up to three (3) full business days to receive registration confirmation from the Fluxx system. Once you have received confirmation, you can begin working online.

The Fluxx system is most compatible with Google Chrome. If you’re experiencing technical difficulties and cannot view your page or are having trouble saving, please use the most updated version of Google Chrome.

You can do this yourself by clicking “reset or create password” on the Fluxx homepage.

You can direct questions not answered by this FAQ page to ncpf [at] artplaceamerica.org (ncpf(at)artplaceamerica(dot)org). If we receive questions that are answered here, we may not be able to reply to your inquiry.