Hal -

Thanks for the update and further information. I figured there's more 
to the story. Doesn't always make it feel better, but it does help 
explain things.

My personal feelings - not TNPR's or UTC's - are that the competitive 
process model for awarding grants may be too dependent on the 
personalities of the individuals on the panels, which change from year 
to year, as well as the wide latitude that seems to be given to 
panelists for interpreting the factors which go into the scoring 
process. There also seems to be a huge lack of transparency in the 
deliberative process, both factors resulting in (from the presenter's 
perspective) too much aiming at a moving (and virtually invisible at 
that) target from year to year.

Never having been on a panel and having only gone through two review 
processes and seeing the whole thing through the filter of a (former) 
small business person, it just doesn't seem, as I said earlier, that at 
price points below $3k, the funding is worth the opportunity costs 
involved in seeking it. That is, unless you're a large enough 
organization to afford the personnel to write grants both large and 
small. There are those who are examples contrary to that thought, I'm 
aware, and it appears to be worth it to them. I'm certainly open to 
being educated on both counts.

Based on my observations, which are by definition highly incomplete, 
there also appears to be too much of a political agenda at play (again, 
a changing agenda from year to year) in the process. Don't get me wrong 
here; I'm all for changing society for the better and using art to do 
it. I'm just not sure that your tax dollars and my tax dollars are the 
appropriate funding source for organizations to use in dictating which 
art forms will be supported this year at the expense of other art 
forms. It seems to me that when public dollars are in play, all art 
expressions should be supported equally. Who's to say that a 
performance of the Vienna Boys Choir is any less valid than that of 
say, a highly controversial new play criticizing some aspect of 
contemporary society performed by Seven Stages - and vice versa?

 From a philosophical standpoint, either we are funding the arts, or we 
are making a political statement.

Personally, I'd prefer my vote and my personal charitable contributions 
of time and money be that which makes a political statement, not my 
taxes. I view public arts funding as infrastructure for all citizens; 
the same as roads, schools, parks, police and every other service we 
pay for with our taxes. I also realize that each season, each of us 
presenters is doing what I'm complaining about state and regional arts 
agencies doing - we are selecting our seasons through our own filters 
as presenters. But we are doing so at our local level, where we will be 
told by our marketplace whether we are choosing well or not.

But so as not to continue to belabor the point without an idea or two 
for change, might it not be better to devise a system whereby, for the 
sake of argument, 60% of the touring grant fund each year is set aside 
to be divided evenly between all applying presenters in a state for 
each presenter's artist fees budget to be used on artists of the 
presenter's choosing and that the remaining 40% be divided on special 
projects of the funding organization's choosing for which presenters 
compete based on artistic merit or other factors as stated in the grant 
guidelines. Every presenter wishing funding would apply for the former; 
every presenter interested in competing for the latter would apply 
again. Apply for both, apply for neither or apply for either. One 
benefit could be the feedback the arts agency would get as to whether 
anyone is interested in what they are interested in emphasizing.

Just a thought hoping to provoke another thought that might lead to 
some improvement for all of us...

Bob