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What is the Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative?
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Why did the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) develop this special initiative?
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What makes these grants different than other grants that support the arts?
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How much money is DDCF allocating to the Performing Artists Initiative in total?
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Are the two performing artist award categories essentially distinguishing “established” artists from “emerging” artists?
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What are the Doris Duke Artists awards?
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How can I apply to be a Doris Duke Artist?
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What qualifications must an artist meet to be considered for a Doris Duke Artist grant?
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Can a Doris Duke Artist also receive support through the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
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Who is on the peer review panel, which will choose the Doris Duke Artists?
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When will the first Doris Duke Artists be notified of their selection?
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How will DDCF measure the success of the Doris Duke Artist grants?
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What are the Doris Duke Impact Awards?
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How can I apply to be a Doris Duke Impact Award grantee?
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What qualifications must an artist meet to be considered for a Doris Duke Impact Award?
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Can a Doris Duke Impact Award grantee also receive support through the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
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Who is on the peer review panel, which will choose the Doris Duke Impact Awards?
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When will the first Doris Duke Impact Award grantees be notified of their selection?
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How will DDCF measure the success of the Doris Duke Impact Awards?
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What are the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
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Most residency programs are designed to support creative time for the artist and/or the creation of new work. Why doesn’t this program make that a priority?
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How can I apply for a Doris Duke Artist Residency?
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What qualifications do artists and organizations need to meet to be considered for a Doris Duke Artist Residency?
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How can I determine if my organization is eligible?
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Are universities, colleges or community colleges eligible to apply for the program?
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Can an organization engage an artist who receives a Doris Duke Artist or Doris Duke Impact Award grantee for an artist residency?
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Can artists for these residencies can come from any field—not just from jazz, theatre and/or contemporary dance?
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Why are there three steps to the application process?
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Why can’t smaller organizations request the larger grant awards?
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Why must there be a prior working relationship between the artist and the organization?
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Why don’t grants support current company members or existing staff at an organization?
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May artist residencies involve work with outside organizations such as community center, schools, social service agencies or for-profit businesses, etc.?
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Who will administer the Doris Duke Performing Artist Residencies?
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When will the first residency grants be announced?
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How will DDCF measure the success of the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
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What will happen to the Artist Residency program at the end of the five-year period?
Added 3/23/12
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What do you mean by target audience/community/market?
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How specific does that plan have to be?
What is the Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative?
The Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative is a special initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) that provides flexible funding to individual artists in the core fields of the performing arts supported by Doris Duke during her lifetime. The initiative represents a landmark investment on the part of DDCF in the potential of individual artists and their future viability, adding $50 million to the Foundation’s existing commitment to contemporary dance, jazz, theatre and related interdisciplinary work.
Over the course of ten years, the initiative will provide awards to more than 200 artists, as well as a range of dance companies, theaters and presenters. The first two parts of the initiative will consist of two tiers of awards: Doris Duke Artists and Doris Duke Impact Awards. The third part of the Initiative will focus on residencies called Doris Duke Artist Residencies.
Why did the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) develop this special initiative?
Doris Duke’s will specifically instructs the Foundation to support artists. Guided by this directive and by an understanding of the personal passions Doris Duke pursued throughout her life, DDCF focuses its funding on jazz, theatre and contemporary dance as well as organizations that produce and present those artists. The record of artists supported through DDCF commissions and artistic endowments is an extraordinary one, and the Foundation is justifiably proud of the work those artists have achieved with DDCF funds.
At the same time, conversations between DDCF staff and artists revealed a variety of challenges created by those project-oriented grants. Artists spoke repeatedly about the exhausting project treadmill, creating project after project to make ends meet; about the pressures to premiere work supported by these commissions, even when the work was unfinished or unsatisfying; and about the many needs that such project commissions do not support—including research and development time, study, professional development and basic life needs, including health insurance and retirement benefits.
With these conversations in mind, DDCF designed the Doris Duke Performing Artists Initiative to empower, invest in and celebrate artists through grants that offer flexible, multi-year funding, and that respond to financial and funding challenges specific to this community.
What makes these grants different from other grants that support the arts?
The Doris Duke Artist Awards and Doris Duke Impact Awards will provide the largest allocation of grant money ever made available to individuals in the performing arts. The Foundation is aware of no other initiative that provides, or has provided, so many substantial monetary grants to such a significant area of the field, while imposing no project deadlines or related requirements on the artists.
To our knowledge, no other existing grant provides retirement funds or awards additional funds specifically for audience development and arts education as does the Performing Artists Awards. The unique design of the initiative will empower artists to tailor the grant to their individual needs.
Additionally, the Doris Duke Artist awards are granted based on past achievement (a prior record of funding for multiple projects) as an indicator of ongoing artistic vitality and continued commitment to an artistic field. Unlike various lifetime achievement awards, the focus is on their potential to create great work in the future.
The Doris Duke Impact Awards are also unusual in that the program uses a peer nomination system to help determine who is eligible for the grants and has the potential to elevate grantees to national attention for the first time through this special recognition of their talent.
Like the Doris Duke Artist and Impact Awards, the Doris Duke Artist Residencies are not constrained to specific projects. The residencies are intended to empower artists to help organizations think innovatively, transform themselves and better connect with the communities they serve.
Furthermore, these grants signal an expansion in the foundation’s support for performing artists, from supporting product-oriented projects to investing more deeply in open-ended research and development. They operate outside the model of traditional grants by being multi-year nature, by their ability to serve artists’ needs beyond specific projects, and by their empowerment of artists to determine both the use and the schedule of the funding.
How much money is DDCF allocating to the Performing Artists Initiative in total?
DDCF will allocate $50 million to support this three-part special initiative benefitting performing artists. The two tiers of performing artist awards will support 200 individual artists over a 10-year period. The residencies will provide support to at least 50 artists and 50 organizations. This funding is in addition to DDCF’s annual allocation to the arts.
Are the two performing artist award categories essentially distinguishing “established” artists from “emerging” artists?
DDCF has deliberately chosen not to use “established” and “emerging” as descriptors to differentiate the two grantee types, primarily because of the misleading connotations of these terms. “Established” often suggests levels of public recognition and/or financial stability that many, and possibly most, of the grantees will not be able to claim. Similarly, “emerging” tends to suggest relative youth or lack of full artistic maturity. In both grant categories, we expect there to be a mix of generations as well as a wide range of interest in pursuing new creative paths or further mastering their established disciplines.
The distinction between the two grant types is largely based on the level of prior success artists have had in nationally competitive grants programs. This approach reflects DDCF’s desire to accomplish a two-part objective: 1) to help artists who have demonstrated their ability to repeatedly win grants free themselves from the constraints of an “artistic grant treadmill,” and 2) to recognize and promote other artists whose impact on their fields may be great although they may have received limited recognition through funding.
What are the Doris Duke Artists awards?
Doris Duke Artists awards are multi-year grants supporting 100 individual artists in the fields of contemporary dance, jazz, theatre and related interdisciplinary work. “Doris Duke Artists” grants will be awarded to individuals selected from a pool of artists who have already received national funding for at least three different projects during the last 10 years, including support from DDCF for at least one project.
Doris Duke Artists will receive $250,000 over a period of three to five years—$225,000 of which will be unrestricted funding and $25,000 of which will be specifically for audience development or arts education. An additional $25,000 will be available on an incentive matching basis for retirement savings purposes. This brings the total potential investment in each individual to $275,000. All grantees will have the opportunity to take part in professional development activities, financial and legal counseling and grantee gatherings as additional benefits.
Grantees will be announced annually in classes of twenty artists per class between 2012 and 2016. These awards are not open to application.
How can I apply to be a Doris Duke Artist?
These awards are not open to application.
A peer review panel will choose the Doris Duke Artists from a pool of grantees who have received national support for at least three different projects over the last 10 years, with at least one project having received support from DDCF-funded creation or commissioning programs.
What qualifications must an artist meet to be considered for a Doris Duke Artist award?
To be considered by the peer review panel for a Doris Duke Artist award, artists must have received national support for at least three different projects over the last 10 years, with at least one project having received support from DDCF creation or commissioning programs. Artists should demonstrate long-term and continued impact on their fields. This award is not open to application.
Can a Doris Duke Artist also receive support through the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
Yes. Because the artist grants are largely unrestricted grants addressing life needs and creative time and the residency grants are project specific grants, it is possible for artists to be supported through both kinds of grants. That said, no preference will be given in consideration to recipients of those grants in determining residency recipients.
Who is on the peer review panel, which will choose the Doris Duke Artists?
Panelists will remain anonymous.
When will the first Doris Duke Artists be notified of their selection?
The first grantees will be announced in March or April 2012.
How will DDCF measure the success of the Doris Duke Artist grants?
DDCF will measure the success of these grants in three different ways. First, the foundation will track the ability of the grantees to meet their own goals as well as the long-term impact of the grant on their individual careers. At the outset of the initiative, each Doris Duke Artist will be required to engage in a self assessment of his or her own skills in areas including but not limited to artistic, financial, legal, marketing and audience development, and to set individual goals. The most important measurements will therefore be individual.
Second, DDCF hopes that this initiative will inspire a national dialogue about how individual artists are supported in the United States. More specifically, we hope that through the awards we can demonstrate the value of unrestricted, multi-year funding for artists and the opportunities to move funding from project funding to deeper investment in an artist’s voice or career.
Third, we hope that the initiative will encourage other funders to support retirement savings and comparable “life needs” (e.g. health insurance, child care, etc.) for artists as an ongoing priority.
What are the Doris Duke Impact Awards?
These awards are multi-year grants supporting 100 individual artists in the fields of contemporary dance, jazz, theatre and related interdisciplinary work.
Doris Duke Impact grants will be awarded to artists who have yet to receive national funding for at least three different projects over the last 10 years and/or who have yet to receive support from DDCF. These artists will be chosen based on nominations solicited from peer artists in their respective fields. Impact Award grantees will receive $70,000 over a period of two to three years—$60,000 of which will be unrestricted funding and $10,000 in audience development. An additional $10,000 will be available on a matching basis for retirement savings purposes, bringing the potential total investment in each individual to $80,000. All grantees will have the opportunity to take part in professional development activities, financial and legal counseling and grantee gatherings as additional benefits.
Grantees will be announced in classes of twenty artists per year between 2014 and 2018. These awards are not open to application.
How can I apply to be a Doris Duke Impact Award grantee?
These awards are not open to application.
A peer review panel will select the Doris Duke Impact Awards grantees from a pool of individuals nominated by artists for their potential impact on their fields. These nominees need not have received prior DDCF funding and/or significant national support for multiple projects.
What qualifications must an artist meet to be considered for a Doris Duke Impact Award?
To be considered by the peer review panel for a Doris Duke Arts Impact Award, artists will have been nominated by an anonymous group of peer artists and need not have received prior DDCF funding and/or significant national support for multiple projects. They will be chosen for awards based on their potential impact on their fields. This award is also not open to application.
Can a Doris Duke Impact Award grantee also receive support through the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
Yes. Because the artist grants are largely unrestricted grants addressing life needs and creative time and the residency grants are project specific grants, it is possible for artists to be supported through both kinds of grants. That said, no preference will be given in consideration to recipients of those grants in determining residency recipients.
Who is on the peer review panel which will choose the Doris Duke Impact Awards?
Panelists will remain anonymous.
When will the first Doris Duke Impact Award grantees be notified of their selection?
The first Impact Award grantees will be announced in 2014.
How will DDCF measure the success of the Doris Duke Impact Awards?
DDCF will measure the success of these grants in three different ways. First, the foundation will track the ability of the grantees to meet their own goals as well as the long-term impact of the grant on their individual careers. At the outset of the initiative, each grantee will be required to engage in a self assessment of his or her own skills in areas including but not limited to artistic, financial, legal, marketing and audience development, and to set individual goals. The most important measurements will therefore be individual.
Second, DDCF hopes that this initiative will inspire a national dialogue about how individual artists are supported in the United States. More specifically, we hope that through the awards we can demonstrate the value of unrestricted, multi-year funding for artists and the opportunities to move funding from project funding to deeper investment in an artist’s voice or career.
Third, we hope that the initiative will encourage other funders to support retirement savings and comparable “life needs” (e.g. health insurance, child care, etc.) for artists as an ongoing priority.
What are the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
Doris Duke Artist Residencies will support at least 50 four-month residencies conducted over a period of two to three years for artists at dance companies, theaters and/or presenting organizations. Residencies will support efforts by exemplary artists and organizations to reach audiences in new ways. Artists and organizations must have a prior history of working together and will collaboratively conceive the residencies.
Residencies will be offered at $150,000 or $75,000 levels. Half of each residency grant will go to the artist and half to the organization. If funds are left unexpended in any part of the initiative (e.g., if not all Doris Duke Artists or Impact Award grantees take advantage of the retirement benefit, or if inflation rises more slowly than anticipated, freeing up contingency funds), those funds could be redirected in the initiative, potentially increasing the number of residencies.
Most residency programs are designed to support creative time for the artist and/or the creation of new work. Why doesn’t this program make that a priority?
DDCF has a long history of supporting the creation of new work in the jazz, theatre and/or contemporary dance fields. That commitment to creation of new work has been affirmed by our Trustees and renewed through at least 2016.
This initiative is part of an additional $50 million allocation to the Arts Program above and beyond our annual program budget of $13.125 million. The bulk of this special allocation will be awarded in grants to artists in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards—at least 100 Doris Duke Artists receiving up to $275,000 over 3-5 years ($225,000 in unrestricted support, $25,000 to help the artist connect to audiences, and an additional $25,000 for retirement) and at least 100 additional Impact Award grantees receiving up to $80,000 over 2-3 years ($60,000 unrestricted, $10,000 for audience connections and $10,000 for retirement). We expect that many of these artists will use their grants at least in part for creative time and to support them as they create new work.
Our field conversations, however, indicate that aggregate audiences for the live performing arts are eroding. This initiative is designed to address that issue of audience demand—i.e. interest, curiosity, hunger, access and/or attendance, as a complement to the grant focusing on creative time. We believe that this might also help artists and organizations work together in a new way: to move past the often adversarial dynamic involved in labor negotiations or scheduling, and beyond the question of “When will you produce/present my work?” to a new question of “How can we work together to increase demand for jazz, theatre, contemporary dance and/or related interdisciplinary work?”
How can I apply for a Doris Duke Artist Residency?
Letters of inquiry must be submitted by June 1, 2012. Artists and organizations can begin submitting joint applications for a residency from June 4, 2012. The process will be administered by DDCF staff, and residencies will be awarded in five rounds between 2013 and 2017. The Artist Residency guidelines are now available on the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation web site (www.ddcf.org/arts).
What qualifications do artists and organizations need to meet to be considered for a Doris Duke Artist Residency?
Exemplary artists and organizations with a prior history of working together can jointly apply for a Doris Duke Artist Residency. The goal of these residencies should be to work together to think innovatively about ways to transform the organization and to develop demand for jazz, theatre, contemporary dance and/or related interdisciplinary work. For artist and organization qualifications, please refer to the guidelines posted on the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation web site (www.ddcf.org/arts).
How can I determine if my organization is eligible?
Grants are offered only to publicly supported 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations in the United States. Additionally, applicants must have minimum income of at least $300,000; have an ongoing commitment to presenting and/or producing the work of professional artists in jazz, theatre, and/or contemporary dance in each of the last three seasons and the current season; or (in the case of service organizations only) have specific programs, activities and/or services benefitting individual professional artists in jazz, theatre and/or contemporary dance in each of the last three years and the current year.
With a limited number of grants to award, the panel will be most drawn to organizations with a demonstrated commitment, rather than to aspiration or occasional commitment. If your organization is primarily dedicated to symphonic music with only an occasional foray into jazz, to classical ballet with only an occasional intersection with modern dance, or to the visual arts with a nominal presenting program, your organization is unlikely to be competitive in this initiative.
Are universities, colleges or community colleges eligible to apply for the program?
Presenting organizations affiliated with universities, colleges or community colleges that produce or present professional artists in jazz, theatre, contemporary dance and/or related interdisciplinary work are eligible to apply for the Artist Residency program. Academic departments are not eligible to apply. Additionally the presenting organization must be the applicant of record.
Can an organization engage an artist who receives a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award for an artist residency?
Yes. We do not consider this “double dipping.” These Residencies are project grants. The Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards described above, on the other hand, are largely unrestricted support, designed to promote economic dignity and flexible exploration for artists, with no expectations about completed projects. In making their determination, panelists will not consider whether or not the applicant artist is also an Award recipient.
Can artists for these residencies can come from any field—not just from jazz, theatre and/or contemporary dance?
Yes, although the focus of the project must be to increase demand for jazz, theatre, contemporary dance and/or related interdisciplinary work. During a meeting with jazz musicians, one attendee said, “I have just realized that, for a generation raised on MTV music videos, jazz must be an inherently visual medium—and I have no idea what to do about that.” That observation lies behind the willingness to include artists from outside our core disciplines in these grants. For example, what might a jazz organization learn from a filmmaker about this issue? Moreover, in an age of cultural omnivorism when audiences are less likely to identify in discipline discrete ways, and when the art forms themselves increasingly blur lines and become more inter- or multi-discipline, might there be value in engaging artists from outside of an organization’s specific mission focus?
Given the requirement that applicants demonstrate a prior history of working together, we expect the bulk of artists to come from within the disciplines of jazz, theatre, and/or contemporary dance. Projects that enlist artists from outside disciplines will not be given preference. In all cases, the quality of the project as stated in the review criteria will be the paramount consideration. Highest priority will be given to projects with the potential, not only to impact the specific grantees and surrounding community, but also to resonate with the larger field(s).
Why are there three steps to the application process?
We are trying to help organizations by moving quickly to review materials, and by using a winnowing process, which involves inviting a select group to submit full applications from a larger group that has submitted preliminary proposals. The winnowing process is intended to spare organizations deemed uncompetitive the extensive time and effort that the full application will require.
Step One, the submission of the Intent to Apply form allows us to identify a panel quickly—one to whom materials can be forwarded within days of the preliminary proposal deadline. Without such an Intent to Apply, it would be impossible to identify which organizations and artists might have conflicts of interest—and as such would need to be eliminated from our potential panelist pool—which could delay the dissemination materials by weeks. The Intent also gives us a sense of how many applications to expect, helping us to know whether the panelist work load can be handled by a single multidiscipline panel, or whether we will need multiple preliminary panels with a more specific discipline focus.
Step Two, the Preliminary Application allows the panels to make comparative preliminary judgments about which projects are likely to be most competitive. This shorter application not only makes a more manageable workload for panelists and allows review to proceed more quickly, but also spares organizations, which are deemed uncompetitive, hours of conversation and work that the final application requires.
Step Three, the Final Application allows the panel to see in depth the planning, the value of the project, the quality of the artists, the capacity of the organization, etc., to determine the best possible roster of grantees.
Why can’t smaller organizations request the larger grant awards?
History in other residency programs consistently reveals two challenges: 1) Small organizations are often unable to continue large scale programs when the original funding ends. They are more likely to be able to carry out more modest scaled programs. 2) The requirement that 50% of grant funds be used to compensate the resident artist(s) might mean for some organizations that the artists earn significantly more than long-time or permanent staff—a situation that can provoke tension and destabilize the organization. More modest grants allow smaller organizations to avoid this problem while launching projects they are more likely to be able to continue.
Why must there be a prior working relationship between the artist and the organization?
Past residency programs consistently reveal that residencies built on past working relationships can move more quickly, can be created through a deeper exchange of ideas and are less likely to fail.
Knowing that these grants will be offered annually for five years will, we hope, incentivize organizations to explore new relationships with new artists and apply in subsequent years, if appropriate
Why don’t grants support current company members or existing staff at an organization?
These grants are designed to promote new, potentially innovative ways of increasing demand for jazz, theatre and/or contemporary dance. Our work in innovation in other programs has led us to a belief that innovation is optimized by the inclusion of outside perspectives—ones that have not become so engrained in ongoing behavior that alternatives are hard to see. One artist in a particularly successful project sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ National Theatre Artist Residency program, described himself as “a dramaturg of the institution” (not in the institution) and his value that of the “outside insider.” That dynamic informed the creation of this program and led to this requirement. That said, the guidelines do allow for former company or staff members—those who have a past relationship with the organization but not within the last four years—to be proposed as the artist for a grant.
May artist residencies involve work with outside organizations such as community center, schools, social service agencies or for-profit businesses, etc.?
While the project may involve a partnership with an outside organization, the lead applicant organization must be a publicly supported 501(c)(3) tax-exempt producing, presenting and/or arts service organization as indicated by the guidelines of the Arts Program and the Foundation.
Who will administer the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
DDCF staff will administer these residencies.
When will the first residency grants be announced?
The first residencies will be announced in March 2013.
How will DDCF measure the success of the Doris Duke Artist Residencies?
DDCF will evaluate the success of the residencies based on the impact of the experience on the artists, the organizations and the communities they serve. We will also look at their ability to explore, adapt and learn from challenges, and finally, to meet the goals they developed together to develop demand for jazz, theatre, contemporary dance and/or related interdisciplinary work.
What will happen to the Artist Residency program at the end of the five-year period?
The program will be evaluated by an independent evaluator. Based on that evaluation and the resources available to the Arts Program at that time, a decision will be made about how and whether to continue the initiative. Since grants themselves can support residencies that take up to three years to accomplish, there is likely to be a hiatus period between awards made in 2017 and a decision to renew/terminate the program, ensuring that a critical mass of projects have been completed and evaluated before that decision is reached.
Added 3/23/12
What do you mean by audience/community/market?
We are employing this awkward triple term in an attempt both to inspire new thinking and to recognize the multiple ways an arts organization might define a group of people with whom it wishes to interact. “Audience” (for many people) instantly conjures up visions of formal performance and a dynamic where the artists perform and audiences watch. Such a dynamic might be at the heart of a viable proposal, but this initiative is equally open to support alternatives that would engage citizens meaningfully outside of this more traditional performance dynamic. Especially in this first round, we are casting the net wide to inspire artists and organizations to dream together about what they might do together to increase public connection and (for lack of a better term) demand.
That said, the artist and organization should have a specific sense of whom they wish to reach/interact with. A sense of intentionality should inform the proposal. Artists and organizations should be able to define clearly the group that they intentionally wish to reach (whether defined by geography or generation or culture or behavior or other specific delineations) and a plan for how to reach them.
How specific does that plan have to be?
We recognize that a “project” may well evolve over time. The artist and organization may wish to build in time to explore connections with the intended audience/community/market, time for the organizational immersion and/or time to plan the project. That said, the initiative does expect grantees to launch at least a pilot effort by the end of the grant period that moves beyond conversation and results in concrete action. Artists and organizations should, before applying, have a sense of the overall intended allocation of time for various stages, precisely defined questions that they intend to explore together that will move them more closely to a pilot project and defined criteria for success.