FY '27 Festivals & Special Events Proposal Workshop (7.15.2026)

We are gathered here today on July 15th for the second proposal workshop. Uh I am recording this. So this this recording will get posted on the website as soon as we can make any necessary edits to it. Um I will also post a PDF version of these slides. So if you want to download that and have it as a reference, you may use it. Okay. Um, I am not going to read slides to you because I know you're all very intelligent people who who can read and you have obviously looked at the RFP and our website. So, you can get most of this information there as well. Um this is this slide is about the purpose statement um that that authorizes the Durham Cultural Advisory Board to open these applications. Um the highlight at the bottom is just to make sure that everybody understands that this funding is yes it is for festivals and special events but it is for festivals and special events that focus on celebrating culture, promoting creative expression and expanding access to the arts. Um and we feel very strongly that we are looking at events that are going to strengthen our arts and culture sector. Tonight our agenda um we have a lot of new things to to talk about this year. Um, one early announcement is a required form. Um, due to very recent announcement of changes in state law is we will be removing a required form from the application process. Um, I will repeat that several times in this presentation and you will also receive it in email and you will see it in the application form itself on submittable. But just to let you know that the EBOP form as it is short called which is equitable business opportunity program is no longer a requirement of this application process. Um we will talk about eligibility briefly because all of the information that is in this presentation is also on the website and in the RFP document. We will review the timeline. Um we will go through the RFP itself, not all 57 pages of it, but highlights of it and spend the bulk of our time talking about the proposal form insubmittable, the required and optional attachments and the submission process. your fir your second announcement that the equitable business opportunity program required form is no longer required. Um in our past workshops we have had a representative of this program come and talk about it. Um we don't have to do that anymore. Okay. Eligibility All applicants must be nonprofits. You may apply in partnership with another nonprofit acting as a fiscal sponsor or a fiscal agent. That nonprofit will receive the award and go under contract with the city of Durham. Um, our program can only contract with nonprofit organizations that are in good standing with the North Carolina Secretary of State and the Internal Revenue Service. So, eligibility, um, the nonprofit needs to have been existence for at least a year. I'm flexible with that. If I know ahead of time and you are a very new nonprofit or your fiscal agent is a very new nonprofit, I would suggest um setting up office hours with me. Um and I will instruct or provide instructions on how to do that just so that we can make sure that the nonprofit is aware of of the requirements of this program. Again, you must the nonprofit needs to be in good standing with the North Carolina Secretary of State and the Internal Revenue Service. The application must show proof of the tax exempt status, which is the Internal Revenue Service tax determination letter that every nonprofit receives. If the nonprofit applicant um has received city funding in the past or has been in any kind of contractual relationship with the city, they have to be in good standing and in compliance with that contractual relationship. Um, the nonprofit again will be entering into a contract with the city of Durham and the event must prominently feature the arts which is generally defined to include visual art, dance, history, cultural heritage, literary arts, performing arts. It's a very wide definition. For those who have received funding in the past, you need to be in good standing with our program. In other words, we need to make sure that you are meeting your contractual requirements for previous previous fiscal year funding agreements. Um, things that we do not fund. We do not fund fundraising events. And that doesn't mean that you can't fund raise at your event. But if the sole purpose of your event is to raise money for your organization, that is that is not falling within the parameters of our our program. So it's not to say that you can't accept donations. Um I will use real life examples throughout this presentation. For example, we the city has been a longtime funer of the festival for the ENO which usually takes place at West Point on the Eno Park on over the 4th of July holiday. That is an event that where whereby the Eno River Association does accept donations. They do have a table where people can make donations. Um but it is not the sole purpose of the event. The sole purpose of the event is is musical musical performances and a jured vis visual art show. Um sporting and athletics that have no demonstrated link to artistic and cultural activity are not going to be considered. Um if the event relates to an organization, to a church or a religious organization, government, um we are not we are not going to favor that proposal. That does not mean that the event cannot can is prohibited from taking place at a religious organization, but the purpose of the event should not include any kind of prostization. Um, anything to do with political purposes, we will absolutely not fund demonstrations, marches, rallies, other protests. This is not the funding for that. um trade shows or trade fairs. If the event is an artist training or or has an artist training component, that does not fall within within this prohibition. But in general, professional trade shows we do not fund. And we have specific city prohibitions against certain budgetary items. this last bullet um which most of these are fairly standard for grant funding. Do want to make sure that folks are aware that your grant budget can include hospitality costs but the city funding cannot support those those expenditures. So if your event includes hospitality that needs to come from another source of funding other than the city. So all requests are evaluated on the ba on on the same evaluation criteria. Um the first one is the city strategic plan. If you are not familiar with the city strategic plan, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the goals that city council has set for the city of Durham. Um, your proposal needs to have clearly defined aims, objectives, and measurable outcomes. Um we need to see through your presentation in the application the um competent planning and and clear time time frames for executing your proposal. Um your proposal in general should encourage community engagement. Um this fund is or these grants are supported by the taxpayers of Durham. Um, we do not use any flowth through money from the federal government or for the state for these. So, your your proposal is a service to the residents of Durham. Um, you should dev demonstrate your ability to raise the additional funding that you need for this proposal. Um, and we'll get into a little more detail on that because we have changed the proposal process to include uh lower level of of accountability um from a standpoint of the level one $5,000 grants. We're not going to be as um rigorous in looking at your fundraising at that level as we would a level three $35,000 grant. Um, and we look to see how you're working in partnership with other organizations, community members, and local businesses. This is all in the RFP, but certainly we are expecting you to be able to enter into a contract with the city of Durham. If we fail in the contracting phase, we cannot cannot get to a point of of signing a contract, decal reserves the right to be able to to pull back from from that relationship and we will reallocate those funds. Okay. Timeline. Obviously, the RFP process is open. We are in session two right now. Um I have set up a significant part of my calendar between July 27th and August 5th for office hours. There is registration. There are registration links within the RFP document as well as on our website. If you would like to set up a 30 minute meeting with me, this is your time. I can review draft. I can answer more questions. We can talk about the weather if if that is going to help help you get to to submitting an application. Um, but if the times that are set aside or the times that I have available are not convenient to you, please send an email to dcabd dcabd durhamnc.gov of and we'll arrange for a time that works with your schedule. Um, I don't want anyone to feel that they are not getting the technical support that they need for this program. I believe the city of Durham employs me to provide that technical support to you, our community. Um, this is considered in government terms a bid process. Um so in in government requests for proposals, we offer the opportunity for all applicants or biders as the purchasing policy describes you um to submit written questions to the office. You can do that to the dcab dermc.gov email address. Those questions that are submitted by midnight on Friday, July 24th, will be considered part of the addendum which will be published right around July 31st. This addendum will have all questions that I have I have received up to this deadline so that all applicants can see all of the questions and all of the answers so you all are on as level a playing field as possible. Deadline, Wednesday, August 12th at 11:59 p.m. in your calendar. I would make that at least an hour earlier just to make sure you hit that submit button before the software, the website shuts you down. Um, I have had applicants in the past email me saying, you know, I was I was five minutes away from the subm button and I got closed out. I can't do anything for that applicant after the deadline has passed. Submittable, which is the online application that we use, has the ability and does send an email confirmation receipt as soon as it has your application in submittal form. If for some reason you do not receive that confirmation receipt, it is your responsibility to contact our office by email. and the emails that are published by 9:00 a.m. the next morning so that I can go into the application and check to see if there was a technical issue grant approval process. There is a typo on this slide. I apologize that should say August third or 17th through September 10th. The dorm cultural advisory board which is a city council and county commissionapp appointed board reviews all of these application individually provides individual rankings or individual scoring of each of these applications and then meets in September to review them as a whole body and come up with final rankings for recommendations. for awards. The proposal review meetings, the first one and hopefully the only one will take place on September 9th, 2026 from 2:30 to around 6:30 in the evening. That meeting is open to the public. We do not have public comment or receive any input from the public. But if you are interested in sitting through the review process, you are more than welcome. There is information on the website on that is a request to please send us an email um so that we know that you're coming. If for some reason we do not finish our review process on September 9th, if needed, we will have a virtual meeting. And that is a typo as well on September 11th. I apologize. Shortly after that meeting, the Monday or Tuesday after September 11th, we will submit a memo to the city administration with our with the DAB's recommendations for funding. If we were to have very large grants, which we will not, we would then submit that funding request to city council because all our our highest grant amount is $35,000. The city manager can approve all of our awards. Applicants will be notified in late September, early October as soon as city management lets us know that that they accept the recommendations of the Durham Cultural Advisory Board and we immediately progress into the contracting process. It is a very very very regimented process. Our goal is for every organization to have a fully executed contract signed by the city manager um by December 18th, 2026. So before the winter holidays. Okay. RFP documents, proposal forms and attachments. Your proposal packet, which this again is all online, will include completion of the proposal form. Um attachments 1 2 3 4 no longer five and six will be required and attachment seven is optional. Highly highly encouraged. Okay. New stuff. Um this year within the proposal form we have the opportunity to tailor our questions based upon how you answer a specific question. So the first time that you will experience this within the proposal form is under festival and special event history. Is this proposal for a new event? If you answer yes, we're going to ask you to describe your experience with event management, with doing this kind of work to describe the size of your projected audience. What are your goals for how many folks you're going to you you're going to serve through your event? And answer questions about whether or not you are currently under contract with the city of Durham for any any other program or if you have been in the last five years. If the answer is no, how many years have you offered this event to the city of Durham? Describe the audience attendance in in the last few years. So, what your size was and describe who your audience is, who who who's come to your event. Um, and that can be demographics, but this helps the the reviewers know, is this an event that really is focused on serving just the residents of Durham? Is this an event that also attracts folks from surrounding counties, the region? Is this an event where people come in from out of town? The next question is the festival and special event description. This is a really important question. Um this is going to give reviewers the opportunity to understand who, what, where, when, why, all of those important facts. If you are awarded funding, the answer to this question and and your other questions help to shape what is considered the scope of work for your contract. So this is very important. I also want to highlight the fact you'll see there's a a 300word limit. I recommend working in a in Microsoft Word or Google Docs or whatever you are most comfortable with where you can keep track of your word counts. Um the software submittable proposal application will not automatically truncate but it will show where where the cut is if your narrative is or if your your narrative is too long. So it is best to work in work in a a software application that you are most comfortable with to edit and draft. Make sure that you are hitting those word count limits before you copy and paste into the into submittable. Okay. Our second branching question where your answer to this question will take you to to the following questions. New this year, we have taken the full appropriation of the festivals and special events funding, which is a total of $400,000, and we have split it into three different levels of grants. Um, level one is a $5,000 grant, level two is a $15,000 grant, level three is a $35,000 grant. This is a real positive positive thing for applicants. Your answer to this question directs you to the budget and the goal questions. The emphasis and the metrics by which we score the five goals of this program which you will write about each of will change based upon your level. um the rigor by which we look at progressively higher levels of funding. We will be looking for greater economic impact to to Durham. So, how are you bringing people into Durham for this event? What what is the relationship of your event and the great flow of your event to other local businesses? um and that gets that that becomes a greater and greater priority with the size funding you are requesting. We also realize that there are numerous events that fit the level one category, the $5,000. They're they're not really large budget events um that are really really important to the culture and the artistic vibrancy of our city. Um so we wanted to make sure that we stressed that differently than than with other gr with the other funding and you will see that as you enter the narrative area. Another benefit of this is that you know through the application process how much money if you're awarded you're going to receive and you can also plan for the case of not receiving funding. You know exactly how much money you need in order to pull off your event. You know you know where that hole I hate to say hole, but you know where that hole is going to be in your budget. Each level has budget questions. Each budget question in each level has a budget form that is embedded in submittable. It will have the amount of money in the income section of your budget already populated into your budget form. All levels will be asked to provide a percentage of the total budget being requested. So, if you're asking for a level one grant of $5,000 and you're proposing a total expense budget of $20,000, 25% of your budget is what you're asking for. Um, all of the proposals are asked for the to list other sources of revenue. Levels two and three, we are list asking them to list the sources of support that they either already have or are pending. Each level is going to answer a or respond to a narrative section for each of the five goals that are established by Durham Cultural Advisory Board for these applications. So, we're going to go through each goal. These slides are all going to look the same, but they're not. You'll notice in the purple table for this goal, everybody has a maximum score of 25. That is because this goal is dealing with engagement in the arts, history, and culture. And that is that is the primary goal. That is priority. If your application is not encouraging engagement with the arts, history, and culture, it's probably not going to be funded. The bullet points below the table are suggestions of how you would demonstrate this in your writing. In the review form that our Durham Cultural Advisory Board members fill out, they have checkboxes for for these suggestions. It does not mean that you are going to be able to do every suggestion in every goal for every event. They're just suggestions. The checkboxes are there if the if the member in their individual review sees that that your narrative is reflecting some of these. There are many other ways to reflect demonstration of these goals. These are not exhaustive. Goal two. Now, if you look at the table, there are different scores for each level, and they're progressively higher based upon the levels that are asked for. And within the bullet points, you'll see that I have two bullet points that are highlighted. Those are items or topics that we are looking for the proposal to address. We are looking for a history of economic impact. We are looking for events in those levels that are attracting visitors from outside of Durham. You can demonstrate or project economic impact for your events. There is an organization called Americans for the Arts and they have a calculator as part of their website. It is called the AE6 calculator where you put in the population size of Durham which we've just tapped over 300,000 for the city of Durham. You put your total event budget, the costs that of your event, and if it's a new event, your target audience size, how many people you think you're going to get. and you hit calculate and it will give you an estimate of what the economic impact of that that event will have on the city of Durham supports innovative events that create vibrancy for DU's community. As you see, level one has a higher score for this than level two or level three. It doesn't mean that that's not important in level two or level three, but we're expecting if you are at those levels, you're already doing this work. So, um providing opportunities for the community to participate with level two and level three. We're also looking likely at events that may be charging for admission, not necessarily, but um to use a very large event that has hap been happening for years in Durham, um Fullframe Film Festival. When we look at a proposal from Fullframe Film Festival, we're going to be the the reviewers are going to be looking to see what this that event is providing to Durham that residents can benefit from outside of buying the festival ticket. So, are there free events? Are there things that Fullframe is doing in other parts of the year that are beneficial to the community? Goal four. We are proud in Durham to say that we still have this goal and we proudly publish it. We are looking for proposals that promote equity, diversity, inclusion, access, and accessibility. Again, this is still important for level two and level three. In level one, we're looking for you to describe to make sure that you're thinking about these issues as you plan for your festival. Um, newer events might not be complete, newer event coordinators, first times might not be completely familiar with the issues surrounding making sure that their event is marketed so that it is reaching all of Durham and providing space for all of Durham to attend. Um, we aren't requiring above the Americans with Disabilities Act, but there are steps that events have taken in the recent past that that go above and beyond. Things like um including a quiet zone for folks that that are really sensitive to environmental noise and and need a breather. um need someplace where they can get away from the crowds, where there's sens sensory overload. Those types of things, put them in your narrative. Put those things that you're thinking about as you make sure that you are attracting a diverse audience and that you have taken the steps in your planning to make sure that your site is accessible and your programming is inclusive to all audience members. And the final goal is the demonstration of organizational efficiency and effectiveness. And again, level three, it doesn't mean that it's not important, but if you're asking for that size grant, um, we're going to we're we're assuming you've already got your organizational efficiency and policies and procedures in place and and are experienced in in the operation and management of such contract as this. for newer applicants or for applicants that are working with a fiscal sponsor or a fiscal agent. We are looking for the answer to this question to be about the event programmer, the coordinator of the event. So, your fiscal sponsor is going to be the contracted agency and that is part of the answer. But we're also looking, this is where you tell the reviewer how how well prepared you are to manage this process and manage this event. And I'm going to pause there um to see if there are any questions, Joe. >> Yes. And we have a few questions. I'll go backwards. Um Megan Mullen asks, "So you have to be a nonprofit to apply for this grant? I want to be clear." and she wants to be sure. >> Okay. Yes. The only type of organization that we can enter into a contract with is a nonprofit. That does not prohibit you from applying. You can work with a nonprofit as a fiscal sponsor or a fiscal agent. They will be the agency that the city contracts with and all of the money will flow from the city to the nonprofit and you will have that agreement in place for that fiscal sponsorship or financial management of your grant. >> Um thank you Annette Megan asks is inind support for example a donation of venue countable towards the 25%. Absolutely. If you if Yeah. Please tell us about your inind support for your event. Please include that in your revenue. Um it's it's very very very important for nonprofits and I know that is how many events take place. >> Um there's an earlier question. Um let me see. Uh hold on. Um, Karrina then asks, Karina Burbank asked, "Does the prohibition on using funds for hospitality include paying for event venues?" >> No, absolutely not. It is the hospitality prohibition is just for the food and beverage. So, you can your acceptable expenditures. Yes. Venue rental. Yes. Equipment rental. Big big big yeses for artist payments. um you know supplies needed, marketing costs, we can cover almost everything of an event cost except for food and beverage. Ann Reebeck asks, "We are thinking about an event in late September. Would that count against us since that is when the review board is making its decision?" >> No, it will not. Um what we do in the case of funded events that are taking place before the contracting process is we have uh an administrative step that we take with city council called contract ratification. So you will be issued a contract for the event after the fact because we fund events taking place between July 1, 2026 and December 31st, 2027. We will take your contract to city council prior to execution so that they can ratify it. In other words, say yes, this was good. This is a good expenditure even though we are contracting after the event has happened and we have taken steps and I will talk about this a little more later but we have taken steps to try and avoid this. So the next round of grants for events happening July 1, 2027 to December 31st, 2028. That proposal process will start in March of 2027. So that we will have recommendations before July 1st. Next, >> finally, we have a question from Hannah Schuben, Liberty Arts. Uh for the budget, is there a recommended or maximum percentage of the total budget for city funding to cover? DECAP has gone through this process or gone through this discussion on on several levels and we have not set a maximum amount of budget percentage of budget for funding. That said, in looking through the history of our funding, especially the last several years um of of funding, um we are funding typically 25% or less. Um that does not mean that we won't consider a larger percentage, but on average, most grants are coming in at around 25% or less. Um there are some exceptions to that rule and that is the beauty of the arts. Um Annette, there was an earlier question from Deline. Uh she asked um she wants to be sure that this opportunity is open to city nonprofits and Durham County nonprofits. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. just double confirming that >> we are funding any organization that has a Durham address regardless of of whether they are city or county located and we are funding any event that happens within the borders of Durham County. So we are that is absolutely essential. I mean if you are asking us for money for funding in an event in Raleigh, you're not that's not going to happen. Okay. >> Uh, there's two more questions or do you want to hold for now and get back to >> We can go. >> Okay. Alyssa Cuffy asks, "If you can if you apply for a level two grant but don't quite meet the criteria or scoring for that, would you automatically be considered for level one?" >> That is a great question. Um, and at this time, no. Um this is the first year where we have had the levels. Um so we are going going to hold to to the structure of the program. That being said, if um say we have a proposal breakdown, and I'm doing this in my head, so of funding 15 $5,000 grants, 10 $15,000 grants, and five $35,000 grants, and we only get 12 level one proposals or we only recommend 12 level one proposals. We would likely add more funding to level two or level three, that type of thing, so that we can balance that out. Conversely, if we don't receive um as many level two proposals as we are projecting to fund, um we would potentially look at funding more level one or funding more level three. If we have remaining money and we have a proposal that is great but not not fundable in level two and we have remaining funds, we would not make that decision autocratically. We would go back to the applicant and ask the applicant if they would consider having their application funded at a lower level. So you would always be contacted first. We would not make that decision without without input from the applicant first. >> Um there >> there are two oh sorry did someone else want to >> there are two quick last questions and then maybe we should continue. So I'll just read those two questions from Stephanie Richardson. I just wanted to clarify. I understand we can accept funds from both the city of Durham and Durham Next. Are those with pending applications with Durham next eligible to apply? Second question, Betha asks, just to confirm, if the event takes place in Durham County, the applicant address does not have to be in Durham. So, first one is about Durham Next in the city of Durham and pending applications. And two, the event takes place in Durham County. Applicant address does not have >> Durham Next applicants. Yes, I I encourage you to complete a city application. um bestlaid plans between Durham Next fund and and the city of Durham's funding programs. We had hoped that Durham Next would be able to make their funding announcement prior to this application process or close to the opening of this application process. Um they are new to this kind of program and they need a little more time. So they're not going to be making their funding announcement until August 1. Um, so yes, I encourage everyone to complete an application or at least start the application prior to Durham Next funding announcement so that in the event you don't get that funding, you can you can apply to us and if you do get that funding, you can just not not hit the submit button on your application and we will be so happy and thrilled for you. and the event needs to happen in Durham. The fiscal sponsor does not need to be in Durham. The nonprofit does not need to be in Durham. So, yes, we have several examples of organizations, especially fiscal agents and sponsors who are nonprofits located in Wake County and Orange County um for events happening in Durham. All right, let's move on. We will get to your questions. Don't worry, we just want to make sure we get all the presentation information out for you, but just hang on tight and we'll get to your questions at the next part. >> Absolutely. Okay. Attachments, these are required. Um, so these these are the these are the things that you can you can you can get get ready to to upload right now. the IRS determination letter stating nonprofit status um for repeat applications. I'm sorry I ask for this every year. I try I try every year to get this wave for repeat applications because I've got a copy of your IRS determination letter for every application you've ever submitted. But we do need it and we do check on these. So, please know that the charitable solicitation license from the North Carolina Secretary of State or a letter of exemption. So, this is more than just making sure that the nonprofit is registered with the Secretary of State's office as a nonprofit. In order to raise money in the state of North Carolina, you need to have a charitable solicitation license. The license is issued based upon the previous year's total fundraising total revenue raised through donations. If your total revenue is less than $50,000, the Secretary of State's office will issue a letter of exemption. As we enter contracting, I absolutely have to have a current license or a current letter of exemption. These are annually issued. So, understanding that the state of North Carolina can be a little slow at times with with getting getting through a full review when you apply for a tradable solicitation license or letter of exemption. You will receive a confirmation email from the Secretary of State's office as soon as you finish that online application. If you are at the application deadline or a few days before the deadline, I encourage few days before upload a PDF of that email so that I know that it's in process. I do a review of all of these attachments and due diligence on all of your contracting requirements prior to prior to issuing any kind of award letter or contract. And I will notify you if something is a miss so that you can fix it before we have to go into signing a contract. a report on your organization's board and staff demographics. This is not used for any decision- makingaking purpose, but Durham Cultural Advisory Board likes to see this information only to um assure themselves that your organization is reflective of the community of Durham. So we we we can't require diversity, we can't require gender diversity, but at the same time, Durham is a beautifully diverse community, and we like to work with organizations that are reflective of Durham. Attachment number four is no longer required and the application form will reflect that before Friday. The non- collision affidavit this is a notorized form so take care of it early um because it it does need to be notorized. This is a required attachment when I put your contract in for city manager signature and it is attesting to the fact that there is no member of the Durham Cultural Advisory Board or city staff who has colluded with you on this application or made promises that that you will receive funding no matter what. Those types of things. It is basically saying that you haven't been guaranteed anything by participating in the application process other than your application will be reviewed. A new attachment letters of support. um letters of support. We are not requiring a specific number, but for level two and level three, we know you're working in partnership with folks. We know you have partners in these in in these processes. Please ask your partner to write a letter of support um and include it in it is a required part. Um if it's if if you only have one or two, that's fine. I don't think you really need more than three, four letters of support. Don't overwhelm us. You can have up to 20, but that's a lot of work on your part and and not necessary. We just want to see that the partnerships that you're developing in order to execute this are truly there, that these these organizations are supportive of your application. Level one, you're not required to have letters of support, but boy is boy is it going to help your proposal to know that you have the support of partnerships and other organizations or key leaders in in the community that think that this is an important event. And finally, your optional attachments. Um these you have up to five files that you can you can you can upload here. I give you plenty of opportunity and our board members really do review this because this is how we we see we see your experience and and and see the feedback that you have received on previous events. This is how you can show off your marketing expertise. This is how you can show off the the great event that you pulled last year. If it's a brand new event, this is how you can show off other events that you have managed, coordinated um in the past that that demonstrate your ability to do this work. Um, you don't have to do any upload anything, but it is strongly encouraged because it really, really helps the proposal reader get a feel for what you're doing in our community. All right, hitting the submit button again. The deadline is August 12th, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. I'm not kidding. This will shut off at 11:59 p.m. I had an applicant last year who was running a little behind and she got kicked out of the system. It was very sad. Um, if you have questions, it's really helpful if you shoot them an email to dcabd durhamnc.gov. That way, I can share both the question and the answer with all of the other applicants. Um, it it's really helpful to be able to to level the playing field for everybody and make sure that everybody is applying with the same information. This is a screenshot of what the welcoming state say or the welcoming page of last year's proposal, but it looks pretty much the same in submittable. Um, just so you know, you're you're at the right place. Um, and we only accept proposals online. We will not accept a a a big envelope with all of with all of your information being delivered to our office. It is only an online application. All right. Please give me questions. Send them an email if they're after the fact. Sign up for office hours. If the office hours that that I have available do not work with your schedule, please send an email and we will we will arrange for a way to set up a 30 minute office hour session with you that works for your schedule. Take it away, Joe. >> Uh we had an earlier Thank you, Annette. Uh, we had an earlier question from Charles who asks, "Can funds be dispersed prior to the event taking place? It's difficult for our org to front money and be reimbursed after the event has taken place." >> Great question, Charles. And yes, up to 50% of the awarded amount can be dispersed as soon as we have an executed contract. What we require in order to process a requ pro process an invoice for early dispersal of up to 50% is documentation on on what that funding is going to go for that relates to the budget in your contract. So, you know, you set up the the sound technician for your music event ahead of time. You've got the contractor, you've got the sound tax quote, you've got a quote from your equipment rental or your venue. Those types of things, those work as documentation. If you've already paid for something, you have receipts, that works as documentation. Artist contracts work as documentation. But absolutely, and many of our grantees are taking advantage of this new policy. So I I really hope that that next year's cohort of grantees take advantage of it too because events are very expensive. Uh thank you Annette Deline asks when will the information session this information session the video be posted online? >> How? I am hoping to have it posted on Friday by the end of business. On Friday, I will send an email out to everybody who registered for for this workshop letting them know that it is online. So, you will you will hear from me. I will also send that email to anybody who has already started drafting in in Submittable because I have access to your contact information. I believe that's all the questions in the chat. We may have just Yeah, that Beth just said thank you. Thank you, Beth. Does anyone else have any questions that they'd like to ask? Okay, I can let y'all go. We've gotten through everything in an hour and five minutes. Aya, I see your hand up. >> Sorry, I was trying to look for my question. Um, I know in the very beginning kind of in the profile when you have the grants questions, you um uh if you say yes, um they want to know if you've done a a grant um you've done work before that's been funded. What if you've done work before this been funded but isn't this grant like isn't this project it isn't related to this project at all but you yourself were involved in somehow what what kind of which information are you looking for? So that the the question about about having a contract with the city. Um honestly has to do with we have the city was incredibly blessed during that horrible period of of the COVID pandemic. um to receive an incredible amount of federal money which the city regranted to nonprofits so that the benefits of the American Rescue Plan Act would reach more residents of Durham um by by regranting that money. Um, and and this is a way for us to check on on whether or not the nonprofit that received ARPA money or any other contract within the city is compliant with with the requirements of those contracts. If you're applying for an event that you have not applied for before or has not been funded, um, go ahead and check that it's a new event. and and then that question will be answered from a standpoint of you you will be able to say I've been under contract with the city for X Y and Z what whatever the purpose was. Does that make sense? >> Yes. And thank you for helping understand the nature of the question. I appreciate it. >> Great. Any other questions? Well, all right, folks. I hope you all have a beautiful evening and try to stay cool over these next couple days and hopefully we will get a get a reasonable summer climate soon and pray for rain. >> Thank you. >> Thank you everyone. All right, [gasps] let's see.