If you came here for an dense and long-form application form, you'll be disappointed. One of the main problems I have with funding systems is their insistence on having people jump through needless hoops and humiliation to prove their worth as an artist. Using colonial methods of results based one-off or merit-based systems which force people into archaic structures.

My belief is that funding agencies should be the ones doing the work. Rather than waste time sorting through tons of applications they should just be looking to people who are already doing the work, but also, seeding communities - raising up people who will uplift others around them.

This is the core belief in my "funding" strategy and where governments lack foresight, and why Reuben Winter was such an inspiration behind it. If you raise up a person like Reuben, you don't just support one-person, you support a league of people who all collaborate and feed off that person. By uplifting the right people, you build whole communities. 

I'd love for artists/bands to give me a heads up as to what they're up to, but I couldn't care less about how many people come to your shows or how many Spotify followers you have. I wanna know how active you are within your community: Do you host open-mic nights at your local cafe? Do you lend your gear to bands coming through town? Do you make t-shirts for your friends bands? Have you a home-recording studio and offer great rates for local acts? Do you support touring bands by letting them crash at your house? Do you show your mates how to make beats? Do you make a zine? Do you share your gear? Do you bring a cake to a show for a touring band? Do you host a radio show on a station? Do you write about music? Do you run a distro, label, manage some other bands? Do you make posters or document the scene like take photos, shoot videos of local shows? Do you buy every bit of merch you can? 

Do members of your project have skills they can share with others - vocal training, lyric writing, guitar maintenance, Ableton, content creation...

If you're not currently active within your community, that's cool. Maybe your music is sick enough that I gotta invite you anyway, but if you come along, please be ready to collaborate and begin community building :)

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