Home > Essays > Knight grant misconceptions
By Alonso del Arte, November 9, 2015
Yesterday, the Knight Foundation announced $2.5 million in matching grants for artists and organizations to do some really cool arts projects. So does that mean that tomorrow you will start seeing those cool arts projects? Well... most likely not.
What's more likely is that on Wednesday, the "winners" will go to a workshop, most likely at MOCAD, in which a couple of people from the Knight Foundation will quickly explain the 20-page contract the grantees will be expected to sign with the Miami Foundation. But wait, you thought the grants were from Knight? They are, but at least with individual "winners," the money has to be shuffled through the Miami Foundation (which takes a little cut—only fair, I suppose).
But one important part to emphasize is that these are challenge grants, more commonly known as matching fund grants. Knight has the millions of dollars to give, but before they give you one red cent, you have to get a matching red cent from another source. Ultimately, philanthropy is about maintaining the status quo. Rich people love matching fund grants because they deliver all the tax benefits of a normal grant while minimizing the benefit to the poor and the middle class.
So these artists can't really get started on actually doing their projects right now (there might be a couple of exceptions). They have to get started on going around begging for money so that they can submit paperwork to the Miami Foundation (the contract sets out some very specific reporting requirements).
How do I know all this? Because in 2013, I was one of those "winners." Even today you can find articles in the Detroit Free Press and MLive.com saying I was awarded $20,000 "to introduce classical music to new audiences by driving an ice cream truck through the city playing Anton Bruckner's March in E-flat major and other works."
The contract I was supposed to sign knocked the figure down to $6,000 or $4,000, I can't remember exactly. Maybe there were good intentions behind that reduction, but there was no un-ringing the bell that I had gotten $20,000 when in fact I had nothing other than a fancy glass plaque calling me a "winner." Supposedly the reason for the matching fund grant is so that the artists "engage with the community."
This is how my engagements with the community usually went: "That ice cream truck is a wonderful idea!" "Would you like to donate money for the matching fund grant to make it a reality?" "Ah... good luck with that." I did eventually raise $125 from online donors only. The one flake I had was someone who said to my face "If you need anything let me know." Instead he should have said "If you need something from me that doesn't involve any money and requires only a little bit of my time, I might think about helping, but don't count on it."
One thing that the Knight people are fond of saying is "Transformational, not transactional." That sounds almost poetic. But let me tell you: my day job is in retail. It would be accurate to say that my day job revolves around transactions (items bought, items sold, items returned, etc.). And yet my day job has never felt as transactional as my experience with the Knight and Miami Foundations.
Another thing they are fond of saying, at least at the grantee orientations, is that it's very difficult to raise money for something you've already done. That's true, there's certainly anecdotal evidence to support that. But you know what's even more difficult? Raising money for something you have no track record of doing.
In my case, I've put on concerts, including an outdoor concert. But I have never put music on wheels. So even though this would have been a matching funds grant, potential donors would have been wary. Their accountants would have inquired into my track record, because it's often the accountants who make these decisions (unless it's to research a disease that afflicts someone in the donor's family).
The idea of giving a little bit of an advance to do preview is anathema to Knight's very transactional attitude. For my project, a little preview would have gone a long way, such as for example running the truck for a short route downtown, stopping by the newspapers and the TV station, in a bid to get some news media coverage.
Then maybe people would have gone from thinking maybe it's a wonderful idea to being sure that it is a wonderful idea worthy of their contributions towards the match. Or maybe the people would have hated the idea, maybe they would have thought it was one of those hipster cultural impositions. That would still have been way better than people thinking Knight had given me thousands of dollars when in fact they gave me no dollars at all.
I saw very dim prospects for fundraising, and I had to admit to myself that I'm actually quite terrible at fundraising in general. I have no problem asking people to do things for me, but I have a very hard time asking people for money. Plus I felt like I had been handed off to the Miami Foundation. I dragged my feet on signing the 20-page contract.
Finally, after being warned of dire ramifications, I declined the matching funds grant. And there have been ramifications. People have wondered why I haven't done the project, because they still think I got all this money from Knight. But how is that different from what would have happened if I had signed the contract and then failed to raise anything beyond the $125?
I admit that after two years, I have misplaced the contract I was supposed to sign. I have in front of me only the last three pages of it. I don't recall having any objection to any specific clause in the contract, but the whole thing just added up to this super-transactional thing where the main emphasis was on who got money how. Here are some excerpts from the contract to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
Taken individually, these clauses sound perfectly fair. But in the aggregate, the clauses of the contract establish an atmosphere of distrust and short-sighted self-interest. ("The Foundation" of course refers to the Miami Foundation). In hindsight, the following paragraph is a much clearer indication of this:
Management and Investment of Grant Funds, Earnings and Appreciation: All Grant funds must be maintained in a separate account under the following terms. Any interest earned on the investment of Grant funds must be tracked and reinvested in the separate grant account and used solely for the approved purpose of the Grant. ... Earnings and appreciation on grant funds shall be used solely for the purpose of the Grant. Grantee may not assess an administrative or financial management fee unless agreed to in writing and in advance by the Donor.
Translation: "You will not nickel and dime us unless you figure out a way to trick the donor into allowing it." Seriously, Knight, some of these artists have to be told that they can pay themselves a salary out of the grant, and you're worried that they're gonna come up with the bright idea of reinvesting the money and charging a financial management fee?
No guarantee of future funding: The Grantee acknowledges that the receipt of this grant does not imply a commitment on behalf of The Miami Foundation or The Knight Foundation to continue funding beyond the terms listed in this grant agreement.
And here I thought that was commonsense, but apparently it needs to be put down in writing. They were already worried about being asked for money in the future and felt they needed to have this clause in place. If you're going to be disliked for rejecting a future request, the reason for the rejection is not going to change the reason for the dislike. It's a transactional thought that was not fully thought out.
The reason for having the contract and involving the Miami Foundation is that the Knight Foundation awards these matching fund grants to individuals, and also to organizations that don't have nonprofit status. If it were up to me, there would be no more matching fund grants to individuals. An organization, even if lacking nonprofit status, is better equipped to handle the complex requirements of a matching funds grant, and perhaps not take this distrust personally.
As for the ice cream truck project, I still intend to make it happen, but only one Friday rather than the 26 Fridays I had proposed originally. The most likely way that it will happen is when I can save up $275 from my day job to add to the $125 I raised in 2013. But I have a whole bunch of personal expenses at higher priority, so I don't know when I will get around to the ice cream truck project. Maybe by the time I can finally do it, climate change will have progressed to such a point I can run the truck any time of the year.
Back in April, I posted a longer version of this essay on Daily Kos. At the time, I wondered whether I would be invited to this year's announcement of the "winners."
Well, I was, I went yesterday. I'm revisiting both versions, and I stand by everything I've written before. There are a few details I will fill in later, though.