seed grants from the icarus project

Submitted by kid_prototype on Tue, 02/27/2007 - 4:15pm.

kid_prototype

Posts: 126
Joined: 2006-12-17

hey guys
so sascha from icarus just told me about this seed grant program they have. They're not ready to accept applications, yet, but it's good to think about.
One idea i had for how we might spend a small grant like this is compiling personal stories into some kind of printed format. What do you all think? How can we make the most of this opportunity?

Icarus Seed Grants
Submitted by will on Tue, 10/17/2006 - 8:50am.

Instead of growing hierarchically by increasing the funding and staff of our national office, the Icarus Project is putting its budget into our Seed Grant program. We plan to distribute small grants in the $100-$1000 range to multiple initiatives, projects, schemes and contraptions spawned by groups working in their communities around the country and even internationally.

We're not interested in the formalities and bureaucracy of other foundation-grant style programs. We're not going to require you to do any paperwork. What we're looking for is ways to support inspired, creative people to get things done.

What gets funded?

Icarus Seed grants will be given to projects and efforts that further the Icarus vision as described in our Mission Statement. Anything that fits our Mission and qualifies for tax-deductible funding is eligible for a grant. That's right, anything. Just because it hasn't been done before or no one at Icarus has heard of it doesn't disqualify you -- on the contrary, wild and unexpected ideas are especially encouraged to apply.

Examples are: an art show; t-shirts; Carnaval float; zine of personal stories; claymation video; banner for a contingent at a big protest; herb tea fundraiser; insurance for your street march; support group voice mail; air ticket to fly in an event speaker; anything related to crossing race and class boundaries; printed how-to and skillshare guides; acupuncture needles; anything celebrating Mad Pride Day; seeds for your community garden; stencil supplies; cd of madness-inspired music; stipend for healers at a community wellness fair; web space; translating into spanish and other languages; radio show...

Some of the qualities we are looking for are:

Doable. Modest is fine. And you're more likely to get a grant if you've done something at least similar to your idea before, but we'll also consider first-time experiments.

Involves people. Community-building efforts that bring people in and nourish participation.

Independent. We are especially interested in funding fully autonomous goals that local individuals and groups direct and pull off independently of the national office, but we also plan on funding some collaborative ventures that involve staff time and resources.

Inspires other people. Making a community garden is an incredible thing; taking digital photos of it and posting on the internet to stir others to create gardens in their community too is even better.

Who is eligible?

Anyone is eligble for a seed grant. We're prioritizing people who:

have lived experience with madness and 'mental illness,'

have been organizing and working with us before; people we have a track record with.

How do we apply?

Send us an email letter outlining your idea, explaining why you think you can pull it off, describing who is involved, overviewing how you will spend the money (stipends are ok), and in one sentence what the end result will be. Each project needs one person who is the point person. You need to include letters of support from four people in your community, people who know you as an organizer or artist. Include a brief bio of yourself and also a brief bio of the people who are writing letters of support (who they are, how they know you, what they do).

It's good to include the following information, and anything else that would be helpful.

1. Name of Project and one-sentence description of what it is.
2. Name of contact person and contact info (email, phone, address, website)
3. Describe your project in 3 or 4 sentences
4. How much will the project cost and how much money are you asking Icarus for?
5. What exactly do you need the national Icarus staff to help out on this?
6. How will organizing this project involve and empower others?
7. How will we know that the project is done? Circle that apply:
a. provide receipts of how $ was spent
b. provide documentation such as flyers, photos, etc
c. end result publicly available
d. other __________
8. Have you ever done anything like this before and pulled it off?
9. How you collaborated with Icarus before? How did it go?
10. Is it clear how this project embodies the Icarus vision statement? If not, explain.
11. If you haven't really worked closely with us before on a big scale, please enclose 4 letters or statements of reference from people you've collaborated with before.
12. Brief bio of yourself and the people writing recommendation letters.
13. Anything else we need to know?

Tue, 02/27/2007 - 10:52pm

xcriteria

Posts: 92
Joined: 2006-12-04

That's cool. The first

That's cool. The first things that come to mind to use such a grant for are, some kind of publication, or an event. Making a compilation of personal stories could be a good use of the money. We should brainstorm different projects before jumping into one, but... what are you thinking for personal stories?

One option with that is, we could self-publish a book. You guys suggested before that we might as well go to an actual publisher if we wanted to make a book, but it's still an option for a small introductory project. We could learn from such a project, and then go to a publisher once we decide to work on a full-fledged widely-distributed book idea.

We could also order cards for the website, or stickers, or get a nice screen-printing setup here.

Or... put on another livewire, or some other kind of event.

Wed, 02/28/2007 - 7:14pm

mynweb

Posts: 492
Joined: 2006-10-31

dolla dolla billz, part two

I think the misled youth network has two long-term goals in terms of funds - getting a local space and paying volunteers. Another possible use of money would be to fund smaller groups within misled youth (collaborative projects and learning groups).

So, I would propose that any money we get should somehow go towards these goals. I think the misled youth network will grow exponentially if we pay volunteers and have a space. I'd be a little skeptical giving money to groups at this point, especially because we have such limited funds, but if there's a very serious group that starts that really needs money for materials (the silkscreen group brendan just mentioned comes to mind), that would be possible.

I think we should keep in mind our intentions based on the events we do. I think if we want to do all age, promotional events or educational events for young kids we should aim for breaking even. If we want to make money, we should do things (maybe even outside of the name "misled youth") for adults with alcohol. I didn't realize the difference alcohol makes until the other night. An event with like 30-50 people buying beer and mixed drinks made more than half as much as the livewire festival, which had like 250 people, and was promoted like crazy for months with glossy postcards and super fancy emails. And paying for the space, all the promotional materials, and a whole bunch of other stuff made us break even, whereas with this event it was all profit because they could do it on a small scale.

I think if we do events we should do both. I think if we do workshop-type events we should do more diy promotion tactics than we did for the livewire festival, and we shouldn't secure such an expensive space, and we should make it all ages and as close to free as possible. That church is a good option for a space... But for events with alcohol we should go all out like we did with livewire but have an age limit and a liquor license, and not put Misled Youth on the postcard.

In terms of self-publishing a book, I figure a) we don't even seem to have the time to put together a zine, which I've been pushing for a while, and b) why spend a ton of money on a book when we could do a zine, then make a book when we're ready and get it published by soft skull or autonomedia?

While I think promotion is very good, so far we've done more promotion than actual things, and we only have a few people. The solution is to only promote actual things like events, workshops, and groups.

There's other grants we would like to get as well... Do Something gives out $500 a week to youth organizations and gave out $10,000 like a month or two ago to a guy who performed at the livewire festival afterparty who has a community center in brooklyn (called "Team Revolution"). There's also the Levinson Foundation, who we sort of know and who already gave us a small $1000 grant for the livewire festival, thanks to an inside connection sarah has with them. They have also have grants in the $10,000 range, and have been known to give to more DIY organizations than most other foundations/donors. There's also Youth Venture, whom we already got a $1,000 from, but it may be possible that sub-groups within misled youth (Poi Group, Zine Group, Silkscreen Group) can get some money from them too.

But when I brought up grants a week ago it was said that we're not ready to even look into them, which may be true, but there are other ways of making money for misled youth than grants (hosting yuppie dance parties and running there pockets at the bar, as I mentioned, but I also have a few other schemes that are more inline with Misled Youth principles). The question right now is, do we want to focus on getting money at all?

-Nick

Wed, 02/28/2007 - 9:42pm

xcriteria

Posts: 92
Joined: 2006-12-04

With grants... I think the

With grants... I think the kind we aren't ready to look into are the huge multi-thousand dollar ones. I think we can and should pursue some $500-1000 grants if we have a use for the money.

I mentioned self-publishing a book just because Sarah brought up getting a grant to publish personal stories. I agree that we might as well just make a zine, if we do anything, and someday put out an actual published book.

I read the Icarus grant description in detail, and seems like it could be used for a lot of different things, if a good explanation of its purpose is made. It even lists "buying seeds for a community garden" as a possibility. So it doesn't have to be directly related to mental health issues.

Anyway, I think that we should look into getting funding (and/or using some misled youth funds) to get the screen-printing project going, and maybe put on a moderate-size educational/fun event. The screen-printing project has the potential to be a good collaborative project and a source of income in the future.