We’re Eliminating the $1k Grant Eligibility Requirement

Fractured Atlas's mission is to make the journey from inspiration to living practice more accessible and equitable for artists and creatives. We are routinely getting curious about our practices and policies to ensure we are holding true to this mission in every inch of our day-to-day work. That’s why we are excited to announce a big change in policy coming your way! 

So long, Grant Eligibility Requirement. Hello, more accessible grant services! 

The “too long, didn’t read”: Fractured Atlas has removed our grant eligibility requirement, meaning projects no longer need to raise $1,000 before applying for grants with us. Fiscally sponsored projects now have access to our grant services immediately after being approved for fiscal sponsorship. *confetti drop!*

Instead of a financial requirement, we are asking folks to review our required grant educational resources before launching full speed into grants with Fractured Atlas. This includes our brand new Grant 101 video series (also available with ASL!) that walks you through the grant process with Fractured Atlas from start to finish. 

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a total grant world newbie, these resources provide useful information about applying for grants with or without fiscal sponsorship, Fractured Atlas’s practices and policies, and how to navigate it all smoothly and intentionally. 

You get a grant toolkit, and YOU get a grant toolkit! 

In the spirit of resourcing all artists in these turbulent times, not just ones that are fiscally sponsored by us, our newly revamped Grant Toolkit is now included in the required grant educational resources section of our Knowledge Base and available to everyone - and we mean everyone! 

Previously only available by request to fiscally sponsored projects who had waived the grant eligibility requirement, the Grant Toolkit now offers everyone better practices around funder research, how to write an irresistible application, and how to work smarter when applying for grant funding. 

Everyone deserves the resources required to navigate the funding world successfully, and we are so excited to share this tool more broadly. 

The nitty gritty: What does this mean moving forward? 

Okay, so there’s a policy change. Maybe it impacts you directly and maybe it doesn’t. In either case, here’s what that means for all of our fiscally sponsored projects tangibly: 

• 👋 If you are fiscally sponsored by us and have already waived the grant eligibility requirement, nothing changes! Keep on applying for grants as usual! We simply recommend that you review our required grant educational resources to sharpen your grant skills.
  
  
• 📫 We are here to help! While the grant eligibility requirement is gone, we still require fiscally sponsored projects to submit all grant applications to our team for review and approval 10 business days before submitting to the funder. You can learn all about our grant application review procedure in our Knowledge Base!
  
  
• 🔍 Review funder guidelines carefully! The best time to realize you are not a good fit for an opportunity is before you start putting in the work. It is always okay to reach out to funders to ask questions about your fit before starting on an application. The Grant Toolkit has a whole section about funder research and how to best approach inquiry calls, and this Knowledge Base article offers a few additional items we’re looking out for here at Fractured Atlas.
  
  
• ❤️‍🔥 We provide honest feedback. We strive to be honest and trusted partners with you in this work, which also means giving honest feedback. If we review a grant opportunity and notice that your project is not eligible based on the funder’s guidelines, we will let you know. Fractured Atlas will not be able to support grant applications where a project is not eligible for the opportunity. 
  
  
• ☑️ Check eligibility before you start. Feel free to email our team or book a Grant Inquiry or Intro to Grants call if you want to verify your eligibility before beginning an application. We’re happy to help provide insight and strategize questions to ask the funder for more clarity!
  
  
• ✨ Find opportunities. If you’re looking for opportunities to apply for, our Artist Opportunity Database is there for you! 

Some context for the context curious: Why this change, why now? 

The Grant Eligibility Requirement required fiscally sponsored projects to raise at least $1000 prior to applying for grants with Fractured Atlas. Projects could waive this requirement by providing documentation of funds raised for the same project prior to becoming fiscally sponsored, raising $1000 in individual donations through their fiscal sponsorship, or by providing documentation that a funder has invited them to apply for an opportunity.

This requirement was originally put in place at the request of funders as a way to measure a project’s readiness for receiving and managing grant funds. It was helpful for a while — but we’ve changed, you’ve changed, the funding landscape has changed. And it’s important that our practices and policies change along with it.

After doing research into how other fiscal sponsors support their projects in grant readiness, observing funding trends from the hundreds of grant reviews we do each year, and listening to feedback from our current fiscally sponsored projects, we identified some key themes: 

• The funding landscape has evolved! There is an increase in grants for emerging artists and arts collectives. We also noticed that there was more room for flexibility in budgets on applications, depending on the funding goals of the grant opportunity. Because of this, the grant eligibility requirement was no longer an accurate measure of grant readiness for some opportunities.
  
  
• The requirement impacted projects inequitably. Some projects could raise $1,000 quickly through their existing networks and proximity to resources. For others, it took a long time to build the network that would get them to $1,000, and during that time they were missing out on grant opportunities. This means the requirement was impacting projects inequitably based on their proximity to resources - and that didn’t sit right with us! 

Ultimately, we realized that if the goal of this requirement was to measure grant readiness, the requirement was no longer operating successfully in practice. We also acknowledge that if we want to continue advocating that funders remove unnecessary administrative barriers from their processes, we need to do the same! 

Because grant readiness was at the heart of this requirement, we also wanted to be sure we were still supporting our projects in submitting the best applications they can - which is where a shiftaway from a financial requirement and towards an educational one comes in. Our goal with these new resources is that you feel empowered navigating the grants world (and empowered to ask great questions!) and supported in advocating for your work. 

We know that applying for grants is a vulnerable and challenging process. We hope with one less barrier and some loaded new resources, you can more easefully resource your project and spend more time doing the creative work you love. Fractured Atlas is here for you while you do just that. Thanks for evolving with us.