Access to Funding: VIM Grants

On March 21 M&G NSW, in partnership with the Museum of the Riverina, presented Access to Funding, a workshop delivering skills to make accessing funds a reality. 

Phoebe Arthur
Museum Programs & Collections Coordinator Museums & Galleries NSW 

Phoebe coordinates the Volunteer Initiated Museum (VIM) grant program, including Small Grants, Development Project Grants and Skills Development Grants for volunteer-managed museums. She is also responsible for the delivery of the Standards Review Program, a development program that has so far worked with 89 participating museums across NSW. 

Volunteer Initiated Museum (VIM) Grant Program

The Volunteer Initiated Museum (VIM) Grant Program provides assistance to volunteer-initiated community museums and keeping places in NSW. The VIM Program encourages museum volunteers to build their skills and confidence in both project management and grant applications, by undertaking progressively more complex projects.

The VIM Grant Program is an Arts NSW devolved funding program, administered by Museums & Galleries NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.

Accessing funding in Batemans Bay

Show me the Money - Access to Funding is a workshop we put on every year in a different part of NSW. Previous Standards participants, local museums, galleries and community arts groups are given the opportunity to hear from a range of funding providers and even chat with them about potential projects for funding. 

Andrew, Cassie and I had a beautiful drive down the coast to Batemans Bay the day before the workshop, and also managed to have a good look around the Old Courthouse Museum. The museum successfuly completed the Standards Program last year and have a range of projects on the go. Our visit coincided with the opening of their new room built especially for their volunteers. 

We also had to be dragged away from Bozo the resident dog who was most disarming. 

Delegates chat with Dianne Dahlitz about the Community Heritage Grant program.

We had a great line up of speakers at the workshop – Dianne Dahlitz who manages the Community Heritage Grants from the National Library; Einar Docker from the Powerhouse Museum’s regional services; Grainne Brundson from Arts NSW, Andrew Gray from South East Arts who represented Regional Arts NSW; and Bea Brickhill from AbaF who spoke about how arts organisations can build relationships with businesses.

One of the highlights of the day was Sheena Boughden’s inspirational keynote talk on the development of the Four Winds Festival – a music festival held every second Easter in Bermagui that Sheena and her team have built up to be a hugely successful enterprise.

The Clyde River and Batemans Bay Historical Society put on some of the best catering we have ever seen, and understandably received a spontaneous round of applause from the delegates!

Thanks to our partner South East Arts and Andrew Gray, all our amazing speakers and the team at the Old Courthouse Museum.

M&G NSW has some helpful resources on grant writing and project management. And don't forget our excellent resource the 2012 Grants and Funding Guide!

Next week we should have several of the talks available through our website and Alert!

Queanbeyan!

This week I spent a day in Queanbeyan, just out of Canberra. I was invited to talk about our VIM Grant program at a workshop organised by Elizabeth Brown, Regional Arts Development Officer from STARTS (Southern Tableland Arts). I was so impressed at the sheer range and diversity of the Queanbeyan art community that was represented at the workshop– in the crowd there were poets, ceramicists, circus performers, quilters, folk musicians, and also a few volunteer museums!

Joining me in presenting were Bea Brickhill from Australian Business Arts Foundation (ABAF) and Miriam Stacey from the NSW Heritage Branch. I personally found it really beneficial to hear about their grant programs, in particular the interesting work ABAF are doing in partnering Arts Organisations with local businesses who are keen to engage in some philanthropy.

After the workshop (and sneaky look at some of the best Op shops I have ever seen!) I was very lucky to given a guided tour of both the Queanbeyan Museum and the Queanbeyan Printing Museum. I was pretty excited as both museums are participating in our Standards Program this year, and have just completed the grueling self review component. Having read so much about the museums on paper, it was such a delight to actually visit them in person. Ever since my return I have been raving about the fascinating and well designed exhibitions and beautifully cared for collection both museums provide.

Doug Quane (who volunteers at both Museums) and Peter Conlon (Manager (Library and Cultural Services at Queanbeyan Council) very kindly made the time in their busy schedules to personally show me around the Museums, even though it was outside of regular opening hours. Doug even demonstrated one of the printing presses for us - it was amazing to see the huge amount of work that used to go into just printing one line (let alone a whole newspaper).

At the Queanbeyan Museum next door, it was impressive to see all the hard work the volunteers had put in to developing such interesting and engaging displays. I was interested to see that some exhibitions had been developed in collaboration with local CIT students that are enrolled in Museum Studies. I thought this was a really great idea – the Museum gets some excellent volunteer help and the students get such valuable hands on experience in working with a collection. I’d love to share this idea with more volunteer museums. I also got very excited when I was shown the hospital display and I caught sight of the museum’s Iron Lung which is apparently one of only twenty remaining in Australia!

The Iron Lung!

Museum display curated by a CIT student

A German typewriter complete with umlauts!

Doug Quane demonstrates a printing press.

Wagga Wagga Grants Seminar

Yesterday I reunited with my funding friends Clare Power (National Maritime Museum, Sydney) and Dianne Dahlitz (National Library, Canberra) who last week had joined me in Dubbo for Access to Funding. This time we were speaking about our funding programs to arts organisations in the Riverina region of NSW.

The Museum of the Riverina in Wagga Wagga were the hosts of this Grants Funding Information session, and attracted a varied and enthusiastic audience of council and arts workers, community groups, and volunteer museums.

Also speaking were
Lani Houston – Regional Development Australia - Riverina
Scott Howie – RADO for Eastern Riverina Arts Program
Louise Conibear – Industry & Investment NSW, Wagga Wagga

It was really interesting to see that all the funding providers stressed the same kind of important points about writing grant applications – such as the imperative of including a clear budget (that adds up!), thinking of a catchy title to grab assessors attention, remembering to actually sign the application, and keeping in good contact with the grant providers to make sure you are on track.

Don’t forget M&G NSW has some helpful info sheets about writing applications, and also project management.

Speaking of Wagga Wagga, everyone loved the giant Chinese dragon in the foyer of the Museum, that was made by local school children to welcome in Chinese New Year. Heres a short video made by the ABC about the project.

Accessing Fun in Dubbo!

Sarah-Jane and I were on the road again last week, this time we headed northwest to Dubbo for the yearly Access to Funding workshop.

We put this workshop on in a different region of NSW each year, in this case bookending the Standards Program that took place in Orana last year.

We were pleased to have the following speakers:

· Arts NSW (Gabrielle Eade)
· Regional Arts NSW (Annette Eassie)
· Department of Veterans’ Affairs (Wendy Miralis and Hilary McClure)
· National Library of Australia (Dianne Dahlitz,)
· Australian National Maritime Museum (Clare Power)

I also spoke on our VIM Grant Program.

It was a great opportunity for people from arts organisations to have a one on one chat with funding providers, ask questions and float some funding ideas. I found there were lots of people to catch up with at the workshop – from past Standards participants to groups who had previously had VIM Grants. Again it’s always so nice to meet people in person, some of whom we had been talking on the phone to and emailing yet never met!

We were also lucky to hear an inspiring keynote presentation from Angela O’Brien of the 2828 Committee, an innovative community venture based in Gulargambone (a small town of 395 north of Dubbo). It was incredible to see how a wide cross section of the community had come together and worked really hard to build a cafe, art gallery and gift shop, a successful function centre and a quality catering service.

We were so pleased to be able to put the workshop on in the stunning Western Plains Cultural Centre, an excellent venue for a workshop. Thanks so much to Andrew Glassop and his team for all their help in putting this on.

Hopefully people took away with them some new inspiration for getting their projects off the ground, maybe even from funders they hadn’t thought would be relevant.

Clare Power from the National Maritime Museum presents on their funding program

Annette Eassie leads a practical session on the Regional Arts NSW funding program