As a long-time great grant writer (and frequent lit mag submitter), I can tell you this: A great grant writer won’t help you right now. Philanthropy is a deer in headlights trying to respond to the massive need resulting from Trump cuts in health care, environmental work, human services, education, etc.
Unless a funder is exclusively arts focused, lit mags are going to fall pretty low on the list of priorities, and rightfully so. (Sorry. )
Any grant writer promising they can find you funding right now is smoking the proverbial crack or just looking for a paycheck.
So yes, writer-on-writer funding is a great idea. You guys are ponying up, because that’s what you do. It’s awesome! If only some of the big names/big dollars in lit (and lit promotion, e.g., celebrity book clubs) would get on board. That would really be something.
I once raised money for, designed, coordinated and co-taught the first queer studies programme in a country, designed a reader and then edited another collection of works by the first generation of teachers and "graduates" ie those who finished the 1-semester course also raising money for publication.
Two embassies gave money for that and I supervised the distribution, though I did have to hire an accountant for it all to be 100% transparent and fair (she charged a minimal fee, as she worked in an NGO suporting the LGBTQ cause).
It was all done with about 4200 Euros then which I would say is about 4800 Euros, ie 5000 US dollars, today, including the token payment for rent of the Institute hall on the weekends (not the space itself, but for security working extra 2 hours on the weekend, electricity and such), payment to the lecturers (again, all those people were doing it out of love, it was just I felt they must be paid a little for their time on the weekends and travel costs), printing, distribution of copies to anthology article authors and a minimal payment to myself -- I mostly did it out of love, but there was a lot of work with it all.
So I know this kind of stuff is doable on a very tight budget with good planning and lotsa enthusiasm. Of course, it helps to be 23/24 years younger than I am now in my 60s, as I was when I did that 2001/2002.
If this helps a lit mag from going dark (it seems there's been a lot of this lately), then OMG what a great idea! Ok, it's a great idea anyway and a very generous thing to offer. Major kudos to you for doing this.
This sounds very cool! I do not have a lit mag but am very interested in how to make the finances sustainable for things such as these. Will you be reporting out the projects/results/lessons learned? Thanks!
If the participating lit mags are willing to then yes, we hope to "build in public" so to speak. But we don't want to limit folks who might have ideas that depend on there being an element of secrecy in the beginning or an idea they don't want folks to copy. I am sure several will be up for participating and we will certainly learn a lot.
As a long-time great grant writer (and frequent lit mag submitter), I can tell you this: A great grant writer won’t help you right now. Philanthropy is a deer in headlights trying to respond to the massive need resulting from Trump cuts in health care, environmental work, human services, education, etc.
Unless a funder is exclusively arts focused, lit mags are going to fall pretty low on the list of priorities, and rightfully so. (Sorry. )
Any grant writer promising they can find you funding right now is smoking the proverbial crack or just looking for a paycheck.
So yes, writer-on-writer funding is a great idea. You guys are ponying up, because that’s what you do. It’s awesome! If only some of the big names/big dollars in lit (and lit promotion, e.g., celebrity book clubs) would get on board. That would really be something.
I once raised money for, designed, coordinated and co-taught the first queer studies programme in a country, designed a reader and then edited another collection of works by the first generation of teachers and "graduates" ie those who finished the 1-semester course also raising money for publication.
Two embassies gave money for that and I supervised the distribution, though I did have to hire an accountant for it all to be 100% transparent and fair (she charged a minimal fee, as she worked in an NGO suporting the LGBTQ cause).
It was all done with about 4200 Euros then which I would say is about 4800 Euros, ie 5000 US dollars, today, including the token payment for rent of the Institute hall on the weekends (not the space itself, but for security working extra 2 hours on the weekend, electricity and such), payment to the lecturers (again, all those people were doing it out of love, it was just I felt they must be paid a little for their time on the weekends and travel costs), printing, distribution of copies to anthology article authors and a minimal payment to myself -- I mostly did it out of love, but there was a lot of work with it all.
So I know this kind of stuff is doable on a very tight budget with good planning and lotsa enthusiasm. Of course, it helps to be 23/24 years younger than I am now in my 60s, as I was when I did that 2001/2002.
If this helps a lit mag from going dark (it seems there's been a lot of this lately), then OMG what a great idea! Ok, it's a great idea anyway and a very generous thing to offer. Major kudos to you for doing this.
This sounds very cool! I do not have a lit mag but am very interested in how to make the finances sustainable for things such as these. Will you be reporting out the projects/results/lessons learned? Thanks!
If the participating lit mags are willing to then yes, we hope to "build in public" so to speak. But we don't want to limit folks who might have ideas that depend on there being an element of secrecy in the beginning or an idea they don't want folks to copy. I am sure several will be up for participating and we will certainly learn a lot.
You guys are the best 💜