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The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
—Harold Pinter
Dear Mary Kelly: Can you refer me to someone who might be knowledgeable on these things?
Thank you for your attention. G. Tod Slone, Ed. (todslone@yahoo.com) The American Dissident (www.theamericandissident.org)
Dear Mr. Slone: I'm responding to your email at the request of our executive director, Mary Kelley. My name is Charles Coe, and I coordinate the grant program for Literature Organizations at the Mass Cultural Council. Our agency definitely does fund literature organizations in our Organizational Support Program. The application deadline is March 1. It's a quite involved application process, and most organizations have been working on their applications for some time. However, if you meet the eligibility requirements, and could complete an application in the available time, you should feel free to apply. Please note however, that there are no exceptions to the March 1 deadline.
Applicants eligible for organizational support must: * Be incorporated in Massachusetts as a not-for-profit organization * Have tax-exempt status under section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service code or be an agency or entity of local government. (An organization lacking its own nonprofit incorporation status may also apply under the umbrella of a fiscal agent.) * Be governed by a board of directors or a council that meets regularly to set policy * Have completed two full years of public programming in the arts, humanities, or interpretive sciences within the three years prior to the application deadline * Demonstrate public cultural program expenses of at $10,000 in cash in the most recently completed fiscal year prior to the application deadline. Please note that an applicant MUST meet ALL the above requirements to be eligible for Organizational Support funding. If you'd like to look at the program guidelines, please visit the following page on our website: http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/applications/osapp.html Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.
A word about Local Cultural Councils. The Organizational Support program as described above is a state-wide program run by the Mass Cultural Council (MCC). The MCC also distributes monies to all 351 cities and towns in the commonwealth, to councils of local volunteers who evaluate applications and write grants on the local level. The Local Councils, such as the Concord Cultural Council, operate independently and make their own decisions about whom to fund. The MCC plays no role in that process.
Our agency doesn't maintain a list or database about other organizations that fund literary journals. I think your best bet is to spend some time on an Internet search engine. You might also contact the reference librarian at your local public library, or contact Associated Grantmakers, a Massachusetts-based organization that provides information on different funding opportunities: Best of luck, Charles Coe Organizational Support Program Coordinator
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:41:04 -0800 (PST) From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> Subject: Literary journal To: "Coe, Charles" <Charles.Coe@art.state.ma.us>
Thanks Charles for the info. Evidently, the MCC, like the NEA, funds only projects (e.g., literary journals) that can afford it. Doesn't that seem a tad aberrant to you as an individual? I suppose it would make a good, honest slogan. The inc. plus 501c costs about $650 plus "Demonstrate public cultural program expenses of at $10,000 in cash"! What actually does the latter mean... out of curiosity? Does it mean I would have had to spend $10K? Also, how many officers are required? It appears that the MCC is set up to prevent truly dissident projects from obtaining state funding. What it will fund is projects that are people and state-friendly in the sense of entertainment as opposed to projects that might push people to question and challenge or actually question and challenge the state, which is precisely what my literary journal does. Meridel LeSueur rightfully wrote: “Culture is the cry of the people, the cry of the ground and earth. It must come out of that and not on to it.” It appears that MCC favors "on to it" as opposed to "out of that." Am I wrong? I look forward to your input. Best, G. Tod Slone
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:09:47 -0500 From: "Coe, Charles" <Charles.Coe@art.state.ma.us> Subject: Literary journal To: "'George Slone'" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Mr. Slone, To answer your question, the guidelines mean that an applicant organization has to show it spent $10,000 in cash in the previous year to be eligible for the program. Please note that this funding program was designed to support organizations; in that context, $10,000 is an extremely small budget that makes the program accessible to a wide variety of applicants. I'd like to point out that some state arts agencies fund primarily the larger cultural organizations--for example, larger museums, symphony orchestras and the like. Our commitment in Massachusetts is that even very small organizations should have access to funding. But even though $10,000 a year is a low bar in terms of cultural organizations, it's a bar that all applicants must clear to be eligible. As to how many officers are required, if you have non-profit incorporation, the law requires three officers: a president, a vice president and a treasurer. The question of whether an applicant is "dissident" or mainstream plays no role in our review process. Some of the cultural organizations we fund do programming that challenges the political or social status quo, and that might be considered extremely controversial. But that's not an issue in our review process, which focuses entirely on the quality of the work, and whether the applicant meets the stated review criteria. Again, I encourage you to read the program guidelines if you have not done so. The review criteria our panelists are guided by in making their funding decisions are laid out there quite clearly. If you feel your journal can meet them, I encourage you to consider applying. Please let me know if you have questions about the process. Sincerely, Charles Coe
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005
09:18:53 -0800 (PST)
Dear Charles Coe: Thanks for responding. What is your title? Again, I repeat because I don’t think you understood: the MCC only accords grants to organizations that can afford them. Small organizations not having $10K per year to disburse need not apply! Unpopular organizations of culture (literature) need not apply! That’s quite simple and not quite democratic, nor quite cultural. Yet I suppose you do not or cannot grasp that simple fact. I do not mean to be sarcastic or nasty in stating this… but rather simply to the point. Clearly, literary journals like Agni, Mass Review, Boston Review, and Ploughshares will be funded because they are backed by universities with cash that will put $10K plus cash into those literary organizations. What really of course pisses me off is that my tax dollars will go to those literary organizations that probably don’t even need the money. “The question of whether an applicant is "dissident" or mainstream plays no role in our review process.” Of course not and for the simple reason that “dissident” doesn’t normally have the $10K to spend each year to even get into the review process. I don’t know why you cannot comprehend these evident truths. Is it simple and omnipuissant indoctrination that blinds you? How else to explain it? “Some of the cultural organizations we fund do programming that challenges the political or social status quo, and that might be considered extremely controversial.” Please provide some examples (and not pol-correct liberal racial or homosexual ones). Of course “quality of work” criteria is entirely subjective and since it is probable the bulk, if not all, of MCC reviewers are of the orthodox politically-correct groupthink mold, it will normally eliminate dissident work. What precisely are the guidelines for the judges to judge “quality of work”? Are there any? The issues I evoke here ought to be discussed by MCC administrators. Yet no doubt they will not be discussed at all. I do appreciate your responses to my questions.
Best,
G. Tod Slone, Ed. (todslone@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:16:13 -0500 From: "Coe, Charles" Charles.Coe@art.state.ma.us Subject: Literary journal To: "'George Slone'" todslone@yahoo.com Mr. Slone, I'm program coordinator for Organizational Support. For the record, the program isn't funded by tax money; our allocation comes from money from the state lottery that goes into the legislative general fund, and from that fund our agency receives the money we distribute in grants. Our guidelines are the best place to go to get a sense of how and why the Organizational Support Program was designed. After you take a look at those, I'd certainly be willing to answer any specific questions. Sincerely, Charles Coe Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:47:08 -0800 (PST)
From: "'George Slone'" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Literary journal
To: "Coe, Charles" <Charles.Coe@art.state.ma.us>
Dear Charles Coe:
Thank you. G. Tod Slone
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:21:34 -0500 From: "Coe, Charles" <Charles.Coe@art.state.ma.us> Subject: Literary journal To: "'George Slone'" <todslone@yahoo.com> Mr. Slone, Our entire budget, salaries included, is generated by lottery money--not taxes--as I've described. I'm the contact person at our agency for literature organizations, so if my responses to your questions are unsatisfying, I'm afraid there's nothing else we can offer you. We can agree to disagree, and I wish you luck with your various projects.
Charles
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:47:11 -0800 (PST)
From: "'George Slone'" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subject: Literary journal
To: "Coe, Charles" <Charles.Coe@art.state.ma.us>
Dear Charles Coe: Odd indeed how all that shady lottery money funnels into the shady cultural council granting operation. It would take a shady pod of Massachusetts politicians to devise such an uncanny scheme, where the Massachusetts Cultural Council, funded by gambling addicts encouraged to gamble by the state, would fund proposals to help gambling addicts. Talk about twisted societies, eh? And to think we're trying to get other nations to imitate our system! In any case, I don't need luck from you, nor desire your well-wishing civility. What I need is public funding... just like Agni, Ploughshares, and the Massachusetts Review. Although my contact with you has led to essentially nothing (I really never thought it would lead to anything considering the state modus operandi of connections uber alles), it has fed my mind. Thank you, thus, for the food. Too bad and oh how sad that you lay in state of incuriosity. Sincerely, G. Tod Slone
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005
15:25:34 -0800 (PST)
Dear Charles Coe: I am working on a satirical cartoon on you, so have hunted for your photo and discovered that you are the “people’s poet” and winner of a Mass Cultural Council “Artists Fellowship in Poetry” (Nothing like inbreeding in Massachusetts, n’est-ce pas?). Now how does one win one of those? Who does one have to know? Who has to write the letters of recommendation, certifying safe and approved? At least I understand much better now why you chose to simply remain silent on some of my concerns and questions. It all makes sense. It usually does. That has been my experience. As a poet, why not force your eyes open just a little and take a look at what other poets, who are not fed by the establishment do, say, and write? Read about my protest, for example, at the Concord Poetry Center, or about my incarceration for protest at Walden Pond. It’s all on The American Dissident web site (www.theamericandissident.org). READ IT! BE CURIOUS! DON’T BE SO CALF-FATTENED and BOVINE SELF-SATISFIED! In any case, I couldn’t possibly imagine even if I had spent 10K last year that you and your teet-sucking coterie would give the okay to awarding a grant to The American Dissident, which specializes in criticizing the sad, sad likes of you and yours. Yes, tell us how poesy enlarges us. What a crock! The great societal don’t rock the boat, don’t make waves poesy CLUB. Anyhow, I couldn’t find your photo, so I’ll just have to do a blank face, but that’s what a cultural bureaucrat is anyhow, isn’t he/she? Yes, a blank face… Your letters will be on my website tomorrow because they illustrate the sad reality of the bureaucrat’s grip upon poetry and art. Sincerely, G. Tod Slone
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005
04:51:32 -0800 (PST) CC: jane.king@art.state.ma.us, charlie.mcdermott@art.state.ma.us, mina.mccandless@art.state.ma.us, tesair.lauve@art.state.ma.us, amanda.dillon@art.state.ma.us, meri.jenkins@art.state.ma.us, janna.berkman@art.state.ma.us, kelly.bennett@art.state.ma.us, charles.coe@art.state.ma.us, erin.gay@art.state.ma.us, maggie.holtzberg@art.state.ma.us, daniel.kertzner@art.state.ma.us, julie.martini@art.state.ma.us, sara.ewing@art.state.ma.us
Dear Mary Kelly, Executive Director:
I wish to inform
you that I am quite displeased with the Massachusetts Cultural Council and its
seeming complete indifference with regards the diverse concerns I've brought
up to Charles Coe and others, all currently posted on my website (www.theamericandissident.org
left column, rubric: CULTURAL COUNCIL). Please read the material I've posted
and please respond to that material. I have CC'd this email to a number of
staff members. Surely, there must be one person employed at the cultural
council who might be able to comprehend one or several of my concerns. Is it
true that the MCC is entirely funded by the state lottery? Does that make this
state quite different from other states with regards funding cultural projects?
Sincerely, G. Tod Slone
[No response from any of the above]
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