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IAC Overhauls Operational Support Process
The Iowa Arts Council’s Operational Support Grant Program (OSG) used to be a source of frustration for cultural organizations applying for funds to help keep the lights on. Paperwork overflowed, knowledgeable panelists to review the applications were hard to find, and Arts Council staff dealt with inconsistent processes.
No longer. With new leadership, a clear call from constituents and a changing budget picture, the Iowa Arts Council in 2002 began to set aside old assumptions and practices and establish a new way of doing business with the state’s most valuable arts assets.
Iowa
Arts Council staff determined that the relationship between the IAC and former
OSG and Cultural Enrichment Grant (CEG) recipients needed to become a true partnership.
Also, the new process would be simpler and non-competitive, and the partners would enter into a 3-year Partnership Agreement with IAC. Partners would also have more predictability in knowing how much they would receive each year.
“The new Operational Support Partnership Program removes the artificial, hierarchical, and bureaucratic system that required bi-annual grant applications for operating funds,” said Iowa Arts Council Administrator Mary Sundet Jones. “Instead, time and energy are now spent on working together with these organizations to make the arts in Iowa better for everyone, and helping OS partners be as successful as possible.”
As of June 30, the IAC completed its first fiscal year with the newly configured OSP program. Five new organizations have applied and are currently being considered for addition to the OSP program.
Jan Boland, executive director of Red Cedar Chamber Music in Marion, supports the changes.
“I guess we arts organizations are not so unlike schoolchildren who appreciate an occasional heartfelt ‘you are valued’ or ‘good job,’” Boland said. “Where the financial support of the Iowa Arts Council’s OSP program is critical to our programming and to our continued existence, nearly as equally important is the respect with which it is offered. Thank you for your fine work. Your tireless advocacy for the arts on a State level filters down into every community and makes our respective jobs easier.”
Beginning in the fall of 2005, IAC will launch its first series of site visits with one-fourth of its current OSP partners. These site visits will provide the opportunity for an honest, in-depth dialogue about the nature of the artistic vision of the organization, the structure that supports it and the collaborative vision of the organization and IAC as partners.
For more information on OSP, visit www.iowaartscouncil.org/funding/operational-support-grant.
