cultural star Workshop we are recording this so it would be very helpful if everyone kept yourselves muted unless you were asking a question um so that we have a clear recording of this whole session and since there are so many of us I we're not going to have time to do introductions amongst all of us but I would love it if you would introduce yourself at some point during the presentation in the chat feature and give us your name and the organization of what you're representing that would be wonderful and otherwise I want to just welcome everyone it's good to see so many people here thank you for coming um I hope you are armed with questions and we have um a thorough presentation um ready to go so I will I'm going to just start by introducing myself I'm Jessica Larson Johnston I am the program coordinator for cultural star my team is also on this call and I'm going to have them introduced themselves to you so you can um see who all is on the cultural Star team and I will um first um pass it over to Grace she's coming hi there sorry my mute button um was covered up because of all these lovely people putting their names and organizations in the chat so sorry for the the pause there um but hi everyone my name is Grace bble I am a project management technician um for the city's planning and economic development department and I've worked with the cultural star program for a couple of years now and I just love um being able to um learn about all the Fantastic opportunities that are taking place in our city so thank you so much for joining our info session today thank you Grace and then Nancy bang hi everybody I won't have my camera on today as I'm um managing the PowerPoint presentation here but my name is Nancy and I am my title is management assistant one I assist with both star programs the neighborhood star and cultural star programs um doing a lot of the background work here but I also um occasionally manage some cultural star projects too so welcome everybody thank you Nancy a little bit later in the presentation we'll have Mark uh introduce himself he is with um risk management and he will cover one of our insurance slides um further down the way and otherwise welcome I know people are popping on as we go please uh keep yourselves muted if you can during this presentation and please introduce yourself in the chat so we know who's here and I am excited for this round this will be my first round I've been in this position position for 3 months and um before that worked for the city in a in a separate department but I'm excited to be on board with cultural star and excited to um go through this presentation with you so our agenda today is to welcome you um I also want to I don't think I saw any of our cultural star board members on but if I'm wrong Nancy or Grace um let me know and I'd like to introduce any of them that end up popping on but if not we will then go through the just the overview of the cultural star program so we'll just touch on history and we'll touch on the timeline and program goals project types uh the Cultural District and guidelines and we have a few slides about compliance and insurance requirements and then several slides that can help you um navigate Zoom grants which is our our application process and then we should have plenty of time for questions and answers at the end so here we go so a little history on the cultural star program in 1993 the Minnesota state legislature authorized the city of St Paul to Levy an additional half-cent sales tax to make improvements to the St Paul River Center complex and also to create the sales tax revitalization program which is what we call Star and star is made up of cultural star and neighborhood star and our program coordinator for neighborhood star is also on today and so thank you so much Erin uh Louis for being with us today and as and one of her project managers um Nia is with us as well um so the star program has three really I think the most the the best features of it are three things I like to talk about which is it targets for the most part nonprofits nonprofit Arts and Cultural organizations 80% of our funding for cultural St directly into the Cultural District of downtown St Paul we have some slides further on in the presentation where I will go into that at more depth and then it's really a neat feature is that it's not only for Capital expenses but it also um funds programming op programming and operating expenses and that can be quite unusual we have all of our information on our website and we tout this website often but it's St pa.gov cultural star oops if you guys could keep yourselves yeah can we mute if possible thank you so on our government website you're going to find almost probably everything that you could have questions about not only do we have guidelines for the various project types that cultural star funds but there is a sheet that has a a lot of frequently asked questions we did a lot of work to get that updated this year for questions that we kept getting repeatedly so we thought that would be helpful you can see who has received Awards the last few years and that can be interesting to see who's been getting funded we can you can learn about this cultural starbard um there's tutorials on Zoom grants so if you're having issues there are quick links to get you help uh there's also just resources there like highlighting libraries are a great resource um for getting your application done we are partnering with them with their Community Specialists so if you need access to computers or you need access um to a community specialist they are there to help and they can help with applications and they can also help with residents in their native languages so uh plenty of resources at um St paulg cultural star we're going to move on and talk a little bit about our program timeline it's exciting we're open now for applications we opened on Friday we are open until the deadline on Wednesday May 15 2024 at 4M sharp we really stress to anyone who's asking and applying please do not wait till the last day we really um stress to apply early if you can um we hate to see people wait till the last day and maybe there's technical glitches or something goes wrong because the deadline is the deadline and if you miss it you've missed out on the cycle of funding so please apply early and and just not at the last hour um after the application deadline just to give you a little idea of what happens is that there's an internal City Review at that point and so my team and I will look through to just make sure that the applications are screened and checked for eligibility there'll be a period of time that if something um looks off or needs to be fixed we would reach out to you directly and you would have an opportunity to fix that I'm gonna again just a quick reminder to try to mute yourself so that we have as clear um of a presentation as possible thank you and okay so then that that'll take about a week but if there's something that isn't quite right we will reach out to you um at that point um applications will be sent to the cultural star board and I will talk about the board a little further into the presentation but everyone just so you know who submits an eligible application will get um an interview with the board and the interview is short I would say there're probably around 7 Minutes under 10 for sure and it's a really good opportunity for the board to ask clarifying questions that they might have from your application it's a really good opportunity if anything has changed within your your organization since you applied that you can give any updates um this will be in person it will happen in June and we will get dates out ASAP if you're applying and you're eligible we will line up the dates and and and best fit um um some an interview date that will work for you and we did try doing it virtually last year and we just had a lot of technical trouble and the board really insisted that it's really nice to meet you all in person uh to get a better idea of um your application and what you'd love to do um so then after that they will give their recommendations to the mayor and city council and we're hoping that timeline follows this that it will be July August and we stress it's tentative because the city council and the mayor's office have a lot going on at any given moment and so sometimes it might take longer maybe it'll go speedier but that's our hope and important to know that the earliest project date is August 1st 2024 and the latest project date for this round would be July 31st 2025 for a special project or developmental an organizational development project and if it's a capital project you have two years so you're the latest project and date for for this cycle would be July 31st 20 2026 and just to also stress that we have one round of cultural star in 2024 we had just one in 2023 before that we were doing two rounds a year and um but that is shifted now so this is the only round for 2024 so the program goals for cultural star are to strengthen the Arts and Cultural sector to promote economic Vitality in St Paul and support downtown as a vital cultural center and we do that by building and diversifying audiences producing a long-term impact promote a broad range of cultural offerings and leveraging additional financial support and cultural star funds three project types the first one is special projects and that would be quality Arts activities in any discipline uh it's probably our most common category we fund an array of projects lots of Performing Arts and festivals um again if you want to see some of those um special uh projects that have been funded in the past it's on our website the second um the second project type is organizational development activities to strengthen grow and develop in organization and some examples of that would be as if you were doing some strategic planning efforts uh you might have a new Staffing position and maybe you needed seed money for that Staffing position it could be a new computer system that will help facilitate the organization but those would be a few examples of what would fall under organizational development and then there are capital projects physical improvements permanently installed equipment or public art and some some examples of capital projects we've done we've done build outs for dance studios we've had projects that were improving the Ada like Ada improvements to spaces we've done lighting and Stage equipment uh it could be a permanently a fixed seating structure in a theater uh we do not fund musical instruments we do not fund anything on a capital project that is movable it has to be part of the building okay now the Cultural District so this is this is this is where we get interesting and we end up getting a lot of questions but the Cultural District 80% of our funds are mandated by our Star Law to be invested in our downtown Cultural District and um so nonprofits and unincorporated groups with projects in or with projects in the district of downtown the Cultural District of downtown get 80% of the funds of our cultural star um the remaining 20% would be for profit businesses that are in the cultural District or nonprofits with projects in same Paul but they're outside of the Cultural District and cultural our downtown Cultural District is defined as the core of downtown here is a map that gives you an idea of what it is but the GE it's the geographic area that's bordered by interstate 94 raspberry and Harriet islands and the Lafayette bridge on one side and Chestnut Road on the other side so that boundary that I've just said and then on the map is the downtown Cultural District and um just to give you an idea right now it's I wouldn't say it's 100% but I would say the rough amount of dollars we have for cultural star this year would be in the 80% fund it'll be about 800,000 and the 20% fund will have about 200,000 that may shift a little bit but that's probably a a good visual of how the dollars will map out this year and in guidelines summaries we just accentuate that the eligibility project dates are August 1st 2024 to July 31st 2025 again for special projects and organizational development and July 31st 2026 for capital projects if you are having an event or a series of events if anything happens before August 1st 2024 it cannot be funded out of cultural star so it's just important there there might be an opportunity where you have lots of dates but any of them that happened before August 1 cannot be counted in the funding our minimal request is 5,000 we have done away with the matching request which was part of our program except in um large requests so Grant requests that are over 50,000 100 you must have matching funds and another source of income for another 50,500 for a total budget of at least 101,000 anything 50,000 below there is no no matching funds needed at all special projects and organizational development funds will get 80% Advanced to them once our contract is signed so if you are an awarde once you uh are notified there'll be an awarde Workshop um there'll be a lot of resources there for you to help you with the process you will be working with either Grace or Nancy who you've met or myself and it will be 80% upfront and then the 20% after the project and Reporting is complete the only time this might differ is obviously there's a lapse of time between the eligibility start date and when you might find out that you'll get funding so that is just part of how this process works because there are several months there if you had your project and then you it's over and you did get the funding there's a there's you could all of a sudden close out start the contract close out right away and you would get everything all at once this is something that you would work out with your project manager on Capital project funds it's a little different uh Capital project funds are dispersed as the project expenses are incurred and the match is accounted as we go so now like a lot of people ask is how often and how many times can a group be awarded cultural star and generally an organization can only be awarded one cultural star Grant in a year and we have one exception and that is with organizations based in St Paul City Limits but outside the Cultural District we've created a way to tap into more funding since you're not in the preferred geographic area so St Paul nonprofits based outside can receive two and but the rule with that would be one project has to happen inside the cultural district and the second project Could Happen outside the Cultural District we have a three-year rule right now in place for cultural star so if you have had three consecutive years in a row with either special projects or organizational development then on that fourth year you have to take a year off elig but you would so if you are in a year where you've had three in a row and you had to take a year off you still would be eligible for a capital project if you wanted so in that sense you wouldn't have to take a year off we did a reset of cultural star in 2021 after the pandemic because in 2020 everyone receiv received um Ops grants instead so then we sort of reset in 2021 so actually 2024 is the first year we have a list of organizations that have already been funded three years in a row that if unless they were applying for Capital would take this year off and that is just to open up an opportunity to have um other organizations get a piece of uh the pie and um so that's that's in play and then unincorporated our groups and individual artists are we we want you to apply and the only um restrictions on that is that you have to use a St paul- based fiscal sponsor organization and then 100% of your project must take place in the cultural District so springboard for the Arts would be uh an organization that is often a fiscal sponsor uh for individual artists so that's one idea and here's just a little bit about our board our cultural board is advisory usually the city council and and the mayor take those recommendations very serious very seriously there's a chance things can hedge a little but for the most part um their recommendations are taken and the board is made up of nine members of the community they are appointed by the mayor and they make up the board and there's two representatives from large cultural organizations two from midsized cultural organizations one from a small cultural rep organization one representative from a philanthropic op organization and one representative from a St Paul Business community and two at large representatives and at least five of the board members must be residents of St Paul the remaining four board members must work or live in St Paul and at least one must represent a neighborhood organization all right so once you apply and you're in the application there are um four criteria of which your application is scored on and there each of these criteria are have five points total so the application can not have more than 20 points so 20 points is what would be a top leading score you've gotten every Point possible and so it's impact quality ability and diversity the most important thing I would say is if you are new to applying for cultural stars that we just when you're filling out the application help us picture what you're doing and the best way to do that if you're not familiar with it is there are four narrative questions that are part of the cultural star application and those are uh directly helping you answer how you're going to give impact quality and ability and diversity with your project so an excellent proposal for impact would be demonstrating how the project will benefit St Paul increase access to different art forms and cultural offerings and addressing cultural needs in reaching audiences and for Quality a strong proposal will descri will describe strong goals and a plan to achieve them to have a successful project and for diversity an excellent proposal would describe a project that will be accessible to and inclusive of audiences and add to the artistic and cultural diversity offerings in St Paul and then ability um an excellent proposal would describe projects that are clearly defined with a realistic plan that could include timeline Personnel publicity financial support and all of that together would demonstrate that your project will be implemented successfully and now we have just I'm we're kind of just doing a condensed one slide on insurance and I want to welcome Mark laurenson to our presentation Mark is the with the city of St Paul as a risk manager and all of our insurance requirements go through Mark and so I uh welcome Mark and if you want to do a quick intro which I basically just did for you but and then you can talk about your slide and you're muted and I'm muted I have nothing to add um um thank you for that and um really the slide is is um is important then I would keep it um but what I would suggest to everyone that's listening is we do have requirements for the um grant program my office reviews the insurance requirements for for um Grant status and the reason that we look at it and I know a lot of the grant applicants as you state are nonprofits and there are tight budgets and we really are cognizant of that and my my feeling is is I I'm here to make sure that we are compliant but I want to find a way to Yes um so if it's a special project or a capital project they're slightly different um Insurance uh requirements the reason a 1.5 million on a capital project is there is the uh state of Minnesota caps um liability that the that the that a city such as St Paul could face in a lawsuit at $1.5 million and so what this what the city's doing to protect itself is to require those that are getting grant money from the city to have insurance that covers any liability that the city would have if we're going to be giving out funds to help um worthy projects so that's that's why those are in place I can tell you just as a start a $1.5 million general liability policy is extremely difficult to find if not impossible but a $1 million policy with a $1 million uh umbrella um is not and umbrella policies are typically not expensive so if if you get to that point and we're asking you to get an umbrella um look at those they're not particularly expensive um and we will will evaluate your claim if you you know dependent on an ability to get that but don't be surprised if you're asked to get it if your requirements are the 1.5 million um auto insurance again very similar um a lot of Grant programs under this program um are do not have fleet vehicles and we don't really expect that to be the case but if the contract is requiring that you use your personal or you have employees that use their personal uh automobiles for the furtherance of the of the grant then we'll just ask that you have uh insurance and that you're able to uh show it if you could have a declarations page or just something from that says I have auto insurance and I have it at least at the the state minimum again verification of workers compensation um it's uh often we see in in the grant programs you that organizations don't have workers compensation because they're not uh required by the state of Minnesota to have it uh the city will then ask you to fill out a quick certification form that that lists the reasons why you're exempt from workers compensation the form literally takes 45 seconds to fill out um and so it's not onerous um but but it is required um and we don't you know the city if again if it's going to be giving out grant money doesn't want to then later have to pay workers compensation benefits for your employees because you didn't didn't have it and you required to have it or you didn't verify that you're not required and finally you this seems simple but the grant period um you know you may have a storment of events um a series of plays or theater or whatever it happens to be um we want to make sure that the the insurance that you have for those items are all within the time period of the project so if you have a project you're asking a grant for and it's from June 1st of 20124 to December 31st of 2024 um or longer um we will ask that the insurance also covers the entirety of the project um happy to work with you um um and really I don't have anything else Jessica thank you thanks for inviting me and now you're muted oh yes I will stress thank you Mark for being here I appreciate it I will stress that Mark really tries to get to yes so sometimes insurance requirements can be confusing or feel complicated um but please reach out to the team we this presentation will be available at our website Mark's email and phone number are there um so we just want everyone to have a successful application and and if you get awarded and get under contract um we're happy to help you get through this process and um but thank you again mark this next um slide is just going to be quickly on some compliance requirements you have to hit certain thresholds for any of these to sort of start trigger triggering it to be applied so we're not going to go into great depth that it isn't uh with cultural star grants unless it's a capital Grant oftentimes these aren't um applied but important information to have but uh federal state and local regulations and policies pertaining to the use of funds such as prevailing wage standards affirmative action and targeted vendor program May apply to your project the amount of the ward and the nature of the project Capital special or organizational development will determine which regulations apply and just for an example the vop gets applied when Grant awards are over 50,000 uh that's this just maximizes Contracting opportunities for minority-owned and women-owned and small business enterprises and labor standards would be applied if you had a capital project with to total budgets um over 25,000 and that just the short uh the short explanation on that is contracts contractors at that level are required to pay Union level wages um organizations receiving grants must comply with all federal state and local laws rules regulations in connection with this with your project including but not limited to the St Paul vendor outreach program it's important to understand that compliance requirements may affect hiring practices and wage rates and cultural star applicants we just strongly caution just to any commitments until compliance requirements and funding regulations are fully understood and Nancy we can we can move on if anyone has questions on that we can we can hit we can hit them I didn't have anyone from compliance on this presentation because it um oftentimes it it it isn't applied but but we have contract compliance contacts here and if you had specific questions about vop or affirmative action and equal employment opportunity or prevailing wage we have wonderful city employees listed here that are happy to help and answer any questions you might have and now the fun stuff how to apply so um you apply either by going to our website and clicking apply and it will will shoot you over to zoom grants which is the program we use for cultural star and I'm going to have Nancy vain kind of walk us through the few slides we have for Zoom grants and she has a lot of tips that will help you if you have not started your application yet Jessica um so applications went live on Friday the 5th already so you can go right to our website and click on the apply button it'll take you right to zoom ANS but before you start an application you need to log in or create an account if you don't have a zoom grants account um it's fairly easy to do when you get taken to the application it'll you know have all of this text that tells you you must be logged in to apply so there are multiple places where you can log in or create an account and you go through those steps and then you can get to the application um some tips for you as Jessica stated earlier start and submit your application early to give a good amount of time to avoid or address any technical issues that might come up um you can log out and log back in to work on your application as many times as you need to before you submit your application your application saves along the way as you work through it so there's no need for you to manually save anything um we recommend that you craft your narrative response responses in a Word document or another program and not directly into the application and then you can just copy and paste your responses into Zoom grants but before you do that you just want to make sure you remove any special formatting from your responses before you paste it into Zoom grants Zoom grants doesn't like things like bullet points um bold font italics or underlines or anything like that so just make sure all of that is removed before you um copy and paste into Zoom grants um if you need to make any updates after you've submitted your application you can reach out to us and then we can reopen your application for you um as long as it's before the deadline after the deadline's done then there's you can't edit your application unless we are asking you to edit it um for whatever reason if we find anything when we are reviewing your application for eligibility and as I said earlier your responses will autosave as you um work through the application you know that your responses are saved when it flashes the savings um symbol or text and then it disappears it usually flashes for like 3 seconds and then um you're able to work on your application again and so that indicates it was successfully saved however if it continues to flash um the saving sign then it means that your response is not saved and there's an issue so to ensure that you aren't losing your work um don't continue working on the application um you some troubleshooting you can do is making sure that you have a good internet connection and then also double- checking that there's no format special formatting or invisible characters in your responses um and then uh if you still continue to have issues then you'll want to reach out directly to zoom Grant star staff um does not have the ability to look at your application as you're working on it so we wouldn't be able to see what your problem is um we can try to walk you through some of the troubleshooting as much as we can but um because we can't see your application directly your best bet for technical issues would be to contact Zoom grants and they're really great at responding um within 24 hours um and they're a great help they also have a great help section they call it Zoom grants University which um well has a lot of resources on you know tips and tricks on how to make your application um successfully submittable um keep in mind every question must have a response and all required documents must be uploaded for your application um to go through um it helps to click on the print preview link before you submit and just read through everything to make sure that you haven't missed anything and to make sure nothing got cut off there is a character limit um for some of the responses so you just want to keep that in mind um if there's a document that is required and you don't have that document for some reason don't upload anything like a blank document don't upload a document that says um we provide upon request this is our request so um if you don't have it for some reason give us a reason um you know upload a document and just provide in that document the reason why you don't have it readily available for us to review and uh we can work with you on that again here's Zoom grants um contact information they're they're great at responding they're really helpful um and for technical issues they would be your your uh quick uh they would be the quickest way to to get your technical issues resolved but you're more than welcome to reach out to Star staff too if you're having issues thank you Nancy all right well when you reach out to Star staff here is how you reach us um it's Nancy and graceon myself and if you want to take uh send us an email it's p- cultural star stpaul.gov um and the website www St paulov cultural star again has an immense amount of resources for you um I want to thank Nancy and Grace uh for being here today I think our last uh slide is just some next steps and um let's we'll hit that one there we go next steps so deadline you have a little over a month um to get your application submitted and then we will notify you um of an interview date and you can respond to clarifying questions and then again we're hoping that the timing would be July August that we would get a mayor and city council decision and then the ball just gets rolling and we notify awardees so this concludes the official presentation but we are all here to help answer any questions uh that you might have um about the presentation about the anything that we talked about or if there's something we didn't talk about so raise your hand if you would there's a lot of you on and we'll try to we'll just go orderly if you have a question you want to put in the chat that works too okay James uh hi let's see turn on my camera um last year it seemed like the word count function in Zoom grants was a bit glitchy um and I wonder do you know has it been improved or fixed since then I I guess if the answer is no there's nothing to be done about it but it would be nice to know going in because I would have things the proper length and it would say no and then they'd fit and but then it would say no it doesn't fit and it was quite kind of whacko thanks for that question I might defer to Nancy or Grace only because I wasn't around um last year for Zoom grants I don't I'm not sure if anything has changed since um since that round correct me if I'm wrong yeah no so I I don't think anything's been changed with zoom grants um sometimes it will appear that you have um you know that your response is within the allowed character limit but Zoom grants is can be a little bit finicky and um tricky sometimes it detects invisible characters that we can't see but their program can and so in that situation if that happens um you would just have to reach out to zoom grants and they would confirm that for you because again star staff as the program administrators we don't have access to see your application until it's been submitted so if you're trying to submit and you've checked everything everything looks good to you everything's got a response all documents are uploaded you can't figure out why it's not submitting reach out to grants and they'll take a look and let you know if um somehow a special character got put in somewhere or an invisible character got put in somewhere um and hopefully that will resolve it do that help James okay thanks thank you Nancy um dwit I will take your question and then I'm gonna head into the chat because we have a few questions in there okay thank you for taking my question um we we have a few programs that uh that run simultaneously uh we have like a language school and also Arts into dancing for uh um kids that come from all around the the place into our uh Community Center in the Midway area and now if I apply for like say for example for $40,000 Grant is it is it um is it um is it awarded in full or can it be uh can it be uh if it's deemed uh that you can afford to provide less than $40,000 you you would considered that is it in other words is it all or nothing and the other question that I the second question I have is um in in uh in the categories of the project types like special project organizational development in capital project uh we do we do struggle with the uh providing space uh say if we for a dance if we rent a space uh under what type of project would that fall or is that funded I understand that that would not be a ctail project because it would be just kind of a rental fee would that fall still in that special project because you're providing a space for dancing and so on okay two parts so the first question about if you applied for 40,000 uh yes there's a lot of instances where the board gives partial grants so um you may get a full Grant but all that will also depend on how your application scores out some people get full grants and some people get partial I think they're really trying to um give as many grants and inclusive as to as many organizations that they can so it won't always be full and it absolutely could be partial um in terms of uh uh getting a grant for a special project that had to do with a uh a per a performance and then your renting space that that is a an eligible expense and Grace you can tell me if I'm wrong but having rental space because it's for your project absolutely would be considered um eligible okay did that answer both you're welcome okay just a couple quick questions in chat and then I can go back to anyone else who has one if we have a current cultural Star Award are we eligible to apply in this round and the answer would be yes unless you are in the you've had three in a row and you have to take a year off um but otherwise nope this is a separate round and you absolutely can apply and another question is hi how do we know which Grant is better to apply for also can you apply for both start grants if so would it be best to split projects um what's better to apply for um and I'm assuming you're saying which Grant in terms of which uh project type um and would that be question like is it better to do special organization or capital is that the qu is that the first part of the question I just want to make sure I'm understanding the question and the second part was if so would it be best to split projects how do we know which Grant is better to apply for um you can't apply for multiple star grants unless you're fitting into that I'll answer this part first into that area where we have made one exception and that would be your you're an organization that is based outside of the uh specified geog graphic area of the downtown Cultural District um then you could have an event you could apply twice and have one event in the cultural District of downtown and you could have one event that is outside the Cultural District of downtown and um that when that would that would be the only case in where you could apply for more than one so in terms of splitting I'm don't not sure Without You chiming in again if I'm answering your question the way the way in I'm intended to be asked but I'm going to I'm going to keep going and Grace and Nancy you can also pop in yes cultural are special um between the two star grants if you are a pro if you are a profit business but you're applying to increase art in downtown which is better to apply for um I don't I don't I don't there is no special and organizational development I don't think there's a hierarchy I think more people tend we tend to give out more special projects because there's a lot of organizations that are have festivals or um performance-based um projects but otherwise I don't it's the quality of the application is the quality of the application and the board isn't say isn't looking at oh it's organizational and not special so we're not going to fund it as well that it just the strength of the application is what will hopefully get you funded so I'm hoping I answered that question thoroughly for you okay good okay our project is already scheduled and straddles the eligibility expenditure period is it more useful to focus our request on the final phase of the project that culminates in performance or is it equally compelling to focus the request on the creation process which also has a natural break near the end of the eligible expenditure period is there a preference for a project that has clear ending performance um I might uh ask Nancy or Grace to chime in only because they've had more years under their belt in terms of uh experience and rounds um Grace or Nancy are you able to jump in uh sure I can I can take a a stab at answering hi Grace again here Jen so if I'm understanding your question properly I think first and foremost just being aware that the grant can only cover expenses that are incurred within our eligible project dates is something to keep in mind so you'd want to think about what you're requesting the amount you're requesting and whether it can cover work that will um take place during our eligible period um as far as a preference of a project that has a clear ending I don't know I don't know that I would necess necessarily say a preference but it it is um appealing to have a project that has a public facing event component to it if you're um applying for a special project proposal does that help oh that helped thank you Grace um I I'm going to do one word from chat then I'll bounce out did I understand correctly that if we are located outside the Cultural District we can apply for two different grants as long as one of the projects happens inside the Cultural District that is true thanks for the question Gretchen and let's go to lamu hopefully I'm I've pronounced your name correctly yeah yeah that was good um I was just had like a little question on like the criteria of diversity and so you know diversity can mean like a lot of things and uh various context um you know one uh plan that we have is like uh Language School um for our community center however um we have like a sort of aim that like you know to promote the culture of like our national group like among like the Twin Cities uh you know other people of other various different ethnicity races are of course like welcome to join but like you know that's like sort of like primary goal to like uh bring up the uh culture among like the next generation of people and so I just wanted to know um when with diversity do you mean like sort of promoting the culture of like the national group or uh an organization is affiliated with or promoting diversity to be like as inclusive to like many other National ethnic or racial groups in St Paul thank you for the question I actually think that both are are right I mean absolutely I would either one of those definitions of diversity fit and I I would I would assume you would you would have the chance to score well on it um our narrative questions um about impact quality diversity and ability have um a limit but I don't remember offand what the word limit is but it's pretty um it's it's pretty big I mean that's not really the word I'm looking for but there's there's usually I I feel like there's a good amount of room to really get um your thoughts across and I think either way you would be fit you'd fit the bill for diversity okay um I'm gonna go to yeah you're welcome and I can't see everyone all at once I don't know how long you've had your arms up but I'm doing my best I will go to Randy next Randy dtz hello this is Randy um I work with um uh traditional and cultural festivals in St Paul and I'm checking to see if um any of the funding is available for handling uh police cost for those particular events and I do have a second question too I believe the the answer is no I do not think that it that is an eligible uh funding sort I mean that wouldn't be eligible okay and the second question is um any of the funds available for helping in creating educational components for festivals and events and how to do better events in the city of St Paul can any of those funds be used for training and teaching um Grace or Nancy with a little more experience um what is what's your opinion on that could you repeat the question sorry I was asking to see if uh there's any funding available for for doing training education for uh community and cultural events in the city of St Paul it be working on training volunteers um helping them in guiding you know how to do a better system how to create a better event and um providing them better Tools in uh creating a more successful event I go ahead Nancy I I would say um let's get back to you on that one that one that one's a unique situation and you know like we could bring it um to our colleagues and to the board to see how they would feel about a request like that that um it it kind of It kind of straddles the line there of it being a considered a special event Arts and Cultural related so we we would have to um hear more about it and then see how it aligns with the program and everything before we could say yes or no so sure um let let's talk some more about that oh very good yeah it's a good question my hunch is it would fall more in organizational development um but also agree it sort of straddles a line a little but um we're we'll get back to you Randy if that's okay I appreciate that Jessica yeah yeah um Caleb yeah hi Jessica thanks for taking my question I'm curious to just hear more about the evaluation criteria and you know what uh if you could describe like what a really strong um narrative would be in each of those four four sections I know you covered that quickly but yeah I really gave just bullet points um I would say and I will defer to my colleagues and and they can add to it I think that what we really want to see in an application is you're is just what does this look like why are you excited about it what is it you know what I mean like just um we just really want the best picture possible of what you're trying to do and you know not have a bunch of fancy words that are just there for that and it doesn't really explain what you're doing and as are you leaning toward a special project can I ask or organizational development or Capital yeah so I'm with the St Paul Arc Collective we do the the St Paul Arc C and um yeah yeah thinking about how we can uh we can communicate the project in a way that uh you know that we're we're understanding that criteria and how to communicate that correctly so I'd be curious to hear about like the type of uh narratives or even anecdotal um types of things that are that the selection criteria or Board gets excited about or something like that yeah thank you Caleb I am outside of just giving you the bullet points that I did because I mean the Art Crawl is amazing um I would I would ask Nancy or Grace like do you have just they've had years under their belt of looking at other applications and what makes a strong one but again like impact when I think of the Art Crawl and again we are here as um kind of running the program we the just I want I like everyone to know like we're not scoring your applications we are making sure you're they're eligible and that everything is all set so that we can kind of gift it up to the board and and it's easy to read and process and we are there for the interviews um but we have no say in who gets uh granted funds and who doesn't um but like impact like reaching a like just the I would say like impact would be like how many people end up coming to the art crawling me it's pretty amazing I mean like in terms of like drawing new audiences all the time and and the attraction there and all the things that you offer in an Art Crawl would be important because it's not just one kind it's pretty expansive um and I mean really quality should talk about and and I hate to just repeat my bullet points but just like your goals and how you're going to achieve a successful AR CW like how are how are you going to do that what are those steps and diversity again just sort of feels obvious a little bit just because you're have an array of artists and an array of audiences that would come and then ability is is more technical in my in my idea in that narrative is just like how are we going to implement the art crawls successfully like what are all the little pieces and the the people and the timeline and other financial support that you have that's important um I know the Art Crawl you can't just do it for 20 grand you probably have a lot of different funding sources and when the board sees a project that has other funding sources it makes them feel like ah this is going to be successful right it's a lot of different entities working together together and I would invite Grace or Nancy to chime in um if there was anything more you'd want to add I think that sounds great Jessica the only other thing I would add is that on the application itself we do have some questions in that narrative section to kind of get you thinking about how to answer um each narrative category so you don't have to answer every single question that's listed under those questions to consider however those are helpful to get at what the board will be looking for and each of those um criteria are worth up to up to Five Points so doing your best to get the essence of those questions in your responses I think um is also a good a good way to think about it and I'm going to step away for a second my battery is about to die and I didn't grab my court so I'll be back one moment sounds thanks Grace uh Caleb did that help yeah it did and I guess the one follow-up question is um just between now and the application date if there's any uh form or opportunity to uh to get feedback ahead of time on those criteria or if if it's outside the cultural star um you know board's capacity or groups capacity if there's any suggestions you have on how to pursue third-party uh support on that absolutely and we can uh connect after the presentation too and um and happy to help you know if if you want to throw something by us again I I I just accentuate that we're not the ones scoring it and and and doing the awards so I you know we don't want to steer you wrong but absolutely you could send stuff to us to look at and and we could give some feedback in terms of just essentially administering the program and the highlights within the program sure thank you so much I appreciate yeah you're welcome and the mule I think unless do you have another question or is your hand just still raised no I do have another question um okay yeah Ahad so um I was aware so like I'm just like kind of a little confused like in our application would you want us to focus on like us answering the multiple questions or like to focus on how our project will fit each of those four criterias um can you kind of frame your question again like there like um like with the last person what you were talking about with him how there's like multiple questions in our application and like you know for our project and what she stated from my understanding is that we shouldn't is that we shouldn't feel the need to answer all of them rather than to just make sure that our project fits uh greatly those the evaluation criterias so I guess my question is like do you want us to put more focus on like an on answering the questions or like having our answers fit those four criterias well okay good question I think it's a I mean I think it's a combination of both and hopefully what the narrative questions are leading you to is to just give the board a better idea of what the project looks like as a whole so I hate it's a hard question to answer because you know I they want to they really want to hear from all the organizations and and we don't want everything everybody's project to look the same like part of what's neat about cultural star is it it can be so many different things and not repetitive and and have new cultural offerings out there so I think um I I just think that the narrative questions um can be daunting but they're just there to lead you through V helping visualize the project for the board and and hopefully not to get too hung up on it but and I don't know that I'm answering this great for you because it's sort of subjective to to everybody's own application but um I think it's a combination of both yeah okay that answers it so just basically like don't get too hung up like the question give like a narrative on the application to give a narrative on like what your project is yes okay okay yeah I got it thanks and if you have and if you have further questions re please reach out if you're if there's still confusion when you're back in working on your application um and Caleb do you have another question no I do not sorry oh okay no don't be sorry I'll put my hand down if I can figure that out um there is a chat question that I'm going to get you next and it says can you give more examples of what would make a competitive application for the organizational development Grant especially around organizational infrastructure growing capacity we want to make sure we understand where the board might draw the line between something that would be seen as helpful for the City versus something that would be seen as only helpful for their or or organization individual project if that makes sense yeah it actually good question and I will I will defer to Nancy or I don't not sure if Grace popped on again mostly because they've had um more years under their belt through a full funding cycle um to know of some more specific examples in terms of organizational development nanc or Grace I'm gonna bat it over to you to see um if you could help give some examples sure so um in terms of organizational development projects um the board has recommended a variety of organizational development projects and it's been it's it can be training up your board um to uh funding or you know doing um like a study on you know the necessity of of a specific role in your organization and how that would impact the work that your organization does for the city of St Paul so it um the the board is made up of of a lot of uh folks who are in you know the same sectors that you all are and so they understand the needs of your organizations and so when they're reading your applications um and including for organizational development they're they look at it and um they don't they don't look at it in terms of like well how does this benefit fit St Paul but um more so they look at your your organization as a whole and say this organization provides these kinds of services or or this kind of um uh uh what's the word programming for the city and so we want to support them in that and if they're say if they're telling us that having this you know having this consultant or having this um creating this role in their organization is going to help help them be more successful in uh achieving the goals that they have for their programming and such then we want to take all of that into consideration and that's what they look at when they're looking at organizational development um applications so I hope that answers the question D did that give you a better understanding I'm hoping let us know if it didn't um a few more in the chat for the application fee do we apply and then send in the check and great news there's no application fee for cultural star um there is for neighborhood star so um Erin's on the call here I know she gets lots of questions about that but there is no application fee uh for cult trol star so that's great um an earlier question that I answered in the chat but I just thought well maybe I should read it aloud someone asked do we have to have the insurance the additional insurance requirements before getting the grant award notice and I said no you would need to have the insurance requirements in place when you are getting under contract uh with Grace myself or Nancy I mean you might have it all in place but if you didn't by the time you get under contract that's when we would make sure the insurance uh requirements you meeting so I wanted to pop that one in otherwise I'm not do are there any other questions let me know raise your hand oh here's one if we have an annual event and have received the grant before does the new application need to be based on a new idea first um uh the first and the existing event um note we have many organizations that do a repeat event and nope doesn't have to be a new idea it's not broke don't fix it but um okay I'm trying to zoom through anybody else have a question we can answer and again if uh we leave this presentation and you and you have all of a sudden you think of three other great questions you have all of our contact information this presentation will be saved and put on the website with all our other resources so if you were like I want to see that slide again you can you'll be able to uh go to the website and and click on the presentation and you'll be able to see everything we've covered today um and let's see what else I wanted to make sure I said that um thanks for the info yeah you're welcome you're welcome thank you so much for coming today I am excited to see all of your applications um that's fun especially uh my first year doing cultural Stars so I hope um you all apply and I'm excited to see what all your projects are so if there's no other questions I will stand for another 30 seconds or a minute then if not I'll pop off and then um we're done but thank you so much for joining yeah we had a great crowd appreciate it and thank you Grace and Nancy thank you Nia and Erin for being here and Mark you're all very welcome here we go all right everybody enjoy the day it's beautiful out I think it is yes get out have