Back in January I praised how easy it was to complete a grant follow up. Lord knows I would love for them all to be that easy.

However, I have seen some value lately in the long, drawn out, detailed grant proposals. I am writing up a grant for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Challenge America fast track grant program. I have created a partnership with another arts organization to create a multi-disciplinary (though heavily dance) piece to premiere in the Fall 2006 based on the Hawaiian Naupaka myth.

The grant isn’t due until June, but there is a great deal of work to do and then a great deal of photocopying to do of that work so I am laboring away at it. (And incidentally, working on the NEA grant reminded me that I have a final grant report due for another proposal in May. In searching for the CD with the form on it, I realized I may have thrown it away and was able to ask to have another CD sent to me.)

It is 18 months until the performance and while we have discussed the show a number of times, there are some aspects of our partnership we haven’t clarified. I say this because in the course of writing the grant, a few questions have arisen that I couldn’t answer. There are also a few paragraphs that I want to run by the other guy to make sure we are of the same mind in some instances (or if he has ideas about rewording to make things sound better!)

I am going to meet with him on Friday to discuss these things. In my mind, the grant is sort of like a pre-Canaan session where engaged couples are asked to think about all sorts of matters such as kids, finances, where to spend holidays, etc–essentially clarifying the details of what their relationship is going to be.

These are all topics we would have gotten around to discussing, but some of them might not have come up–or at least not talked about in specific enough terms–until we were faced with a situation where the other guy assumed the other was taking care of the arrangements and neither does.

The NEA of course wants to make sure you have thought about these things before they hand you the taxpayers’ money. (The per captia amount of which won’t get you a Coke). If you really want to know what these topics are, take a look at the 29 page grant application (half of which are instructions)

There will be plenty of things my partner in this endeavor and I will have to discuss and make mistaken assumptions about that the grant doesn’t cover. In some sense, it is helpful to have the process of this grant there to start the conversation. (In another sense, of course, the process is a pain in the butt. But you probably already knew that.)