Grants To Help Produce A Gospel CD?

A potential client's email:

I want to pay by creidt card to have you help me get a grant. Do you reseach grants? I was some what confused on the email and please help me understand!!! Will you help me seach for grants for people using it for personal use for a great cause?

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My Response

First of all its not your grant until you get it.

Here is an excerpt from my Payment Information page:

How to Hire a Freelance Grantwriter

Count on having to pay a freelancer before you get any grants. Very few professionals will accept a percentage or commission or deferred payment. If you don't have the cash needed, collect enough from your board, staff and volunteers to pay for an hour or two with a freelancer. He or she can clarify some initial steps you could take on your own and suggest some potential grantors for you to research and cultivate. Don't ask a freelance grantwriter to volunteer their services. Seasoned grantseekers get asked constantly to work for free. If they do volunteer, it's usually for organizations or individuals they already have a relationship with. The fact that you're a non-profit carries no weight – that's all they work with!

So I suggest that if you want someone to get you the grant first then you find someone else to help you get it.

Let's take a look at your request specifically:

You want grant money to produce your CD - right? Since you will be doing a lot of the production work yourself have you considered the possibility of yourself being a production company? There is a $20,000 grant program for minorities that want to start their own business so if you start a production company that is the same thing as starting your own business. I mention this particular grant program because one of the past grant winners started her own film company with the grant money.

If your recordings provide a special educational message for others there are other grant programs that you can apply for.

Individual states have grant programs for artists, there are grant programs to help finance producing an artist's CD.............

A nationally known gospel artist has receive FIVE Grants for his gospel works....Here is an excerpt:

"Chanticleer is the recipient of major grants from various foundations, organizations and The National Endowment for the Arts."

Finding this information is what I do for clients. You get ALL of the grant information that I find delivered as an attached file via email. Once you get the information about the grant programs that you are eligible for you can then decide whether or not you want to apply for them yourself or whether or not you want to hire a grantwriter - whether its me or someone else - to write the grant for you. Either way its you the client that has all the information about the grant programs that you're eligible to apply for.