Collective Voting Grants: Is it Worth the Money?

By Ken

During my time as a solo performance artist, I became all too familiar with grants. In fact, I found that I spent more time writing grant applications than I did writing material for performance. While I don’t bemoan the process of writing business proposals—I believe all artists should think of themselves as a business entity and get in the habit of concisely promoting their work and themselves—the act of applying for grants is very much like entering a contest. I’d much rather fill out a 3×5 index card and drop it in the mail than manipulate and re-work biographies, summaries, resumes, work samples, project proposals, and goal and artistic statements that will fit into the confines of any given grant competition. They’re all different with almost idiosyncratic advisos about where to put your paper clip and what weight and shade of white paper stock you should use.

In the past few years, a new genre of grants came onto the philanthropic scene: the Vote-A-Thon Grant competition. Chase and Pepsi have utilized these methods with varying levels of success and criticism. The major criticism for this platform is that the best organization or idea may not win; the major factor for success is the ability to galvanize networks and prod people into voting. The culling of anonymous voting opens the door to fraudulent identity voting as well as fraudulent proxy voting.

I know for myself I probably have over 50 email addresses for various projects.

When I decided to submit a proposal for the Pepsi Refresh Everything grant competition, I didn’t realize that I’d need a supercomputer to submit my project at 9:00:01 PM PST at the beginning of the month. I was discouraged for several months when I’d get shut out in less than a minute. Somehow July 1, I got in. Maybe because people got discouraged from the heavy criticism that these particular kinds of grants received. I then had to wait a month to hear about my approval. On September 1st, I heard about the acceptance of a proposal for my organization, Mavericks of Asian Pacific Islander Descent (MAPID) and immediately had to begin the begs, pleas, and goads. Luckily I prepared with a pre-eminent strike strategy.

I “friend requested” as many mutual friends that I could on Facebook, “invited” them to “like” the Pepsi application, and “suggested” friends with East West Players.

From 8Asian’s Joz, I learned that East West Players, on behalf of the National Asian American Theater Festival, would be competing as well (in a larger dollar amount grant than MAPID).

I sent out emails, Facebook messages, videos, and posts trying to amass some votes. I called in the family for assistance. I even upgraded to text messaging on my cell phone—one can vote via refresheverything.com, via Facebook application, and via text each and every day.

As a board member of East West Players, Joz had mentioned the uphill battle we both faced. She estimated that another organization that competed in the Chase grant spent more money (donated/in-kind/hard money) than it would have amassed via the competition.

We also speculated on what it would take to galvanize our community—is it asking too much for people to click and text every day?

Four days in, and I’m not sure I’ve motivated even those who I’ve helped out through my organization, my money, my projects, and my time. In four days, I’ve gone through so many turbulent emotions—hopefulness, elation, desperation, resentfulness, hopelessness, anxiousness, anger, sadness, embitterment, pragmatic, desire, inspired, happiness, gratefulness.

Thus is another resulting side effect of this mode of philanthropy: when your peers are not only your judges but your donors, does it say something about the work you do when you can’t get their votes?

Where do you go when you don’t get the money?

ABOUT KEN: Ken Choy is an actor, writer, community organizer, and producer of Breaking the Bow. He is gay, green, and gluten-free.