[Dixielandjazz] Re: Playing For Kids

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

Yes, indeed Dan there are Grants for everything you can possibly think of and 
money going begging every year because folks like many of us on this list are 
so complacent and don't go looking for it.

It is indeed a pain in the rear more often than not to go try to get into the 
cycle of funding and the typical is to get turned down at least the first 
three times which is very frustrating for most level headed folks at best.

But just think about damned near anything else the Government does, i.e. 
trying to pass a budget, trying to balance a budget, trying to pass a law trying 
to repeal a law etc. etc. etc.  the beuracracies (sic)  are bogged down with so 
many people on payrolls to make these things happen and administrate them 
that they tend to play a lot of games amongst themselves to keep their fingers on 
the money that is being doled out.

It is not uncommon for good folks trying to get funded to continue putting in 
proposals for funding for a couple of years and find themselves getting 
turned down for some ridiculous reason or another while being patted on the back 
for playing the game and submitting them.

Surprise! Surprise!  the year after they go away in frustration and do not 
submit a proposal to be rejected again, wallah ! some new never before heard of 
organization jumps up and gets funded to do exactly what their proposal 
proposed, but he money went to another well entrenched organization in the pipeline 
to protect the jobs and careers of these professional Arts politicians.

Your best approach is to go directly to the parent teacher associations, and 
make your own deals, video tape all the performances and document it all, and 
then seek a major corporate sponsor for funding to put them all together for a 
documentary that they can pay for, for PBS, and so on and so on.

There really is NO FREE MONEY, you always have to work your fanny off to get 
it and it will have so many strings attached that will make you very, very 
angry and most folks just give up in disgust and go away.

You Dan work for the University of Texas, just look around you and see how 
they do things it should give you a pretty good clue as to how to do this.

Yes, it can be done, and should be done, but most folks will not or cannot 
devote the enormous dedication and time to doing it.

That is why I started my own program, no red tape, no administrative body 
governing it from above and nobody coming in and touching the funds raised for 
the project for their own causes or forwarding their own careers on the backs of 
the people who work my program.

"Jazz for Kids" raises it's own money and promotes itself and are beholding 
to no one, and we do our school programs much like the one  Steve Barbone just 
described.  The schools are begging for these kind of activities, and they 
also have pots of money hidden that they never discuss either that they can tap 
into to make these gigs happen.

Do not go do them for Free I repeat do not do them for Free you don't have 
to, but you will not get rich off of them either.  Use them for promotion and 
public image for your own group and reap the benefits of all the real jobs that 
come out of them over time.  The secret is to keep doing them even if the 
first few don't seem to be great, it will take you time to adjust to the system 
and the performances with different age groups, etc., and working with school 
officials and parent clubs etc.  They all have their own little agendas and 
quirks to deal with, so be patient and go with the flow a little bit, those who 
really want to get involved with it can of course contact me off list and I will 
be happy to share my program with them.

I would really like to have a mutual place at a festival somewhere to be able 
to have an all day seminar on it perhaps at one of the jazz camps or 
something like that that the Jazz Societies operate,   This is exactly the kind of 
things that should be being done and provided by all these non profit Jazz Clubs 
and Societies, they should have their volunteers out in the community every 
week at every kind of function that goes on in the city and county talking about 
these kind of programs and setting up valuable contacts with people to 
expedite them.  It also creates decent daytime employment opportunities for the 
musicians in their societies that do all those benefits and freebie gigs to keep 
the societies in business to not make money.

Just because you run a Non Profit organization does not mean it should not be 
run like a real business and there is no law that says it cannot make a 
profit.  Unfortunately most such groups believe just the opposite.


Cheers,

Tom Wiggins