Arts Professional Story: Sarah Ward, South Chicago Art Center

Sarah Ward, Executive Director of South Chicago Art Center

The South Chicago Art Center was established in 2001 to address a pressing need in one of Chicago’s most blighted neighborhoods. South Chicago was devoid of free after-school programs and local teenagers had no after-school programs available at all. The Art Center was set up to meet these needs, but also to do much more. Its mission is to provide a safe place for children after school; to bring arts education to local impoverished schools; to stimulate the imaginations of participants of all ages; to cultivate a sense of aesthetics; to boost self-esteem and intellectual curiosity; to decrease incidents of crime and substance abuse; and to promote friendship, solidarity and empowerment in the community.

After seven years of operation, the South Chicago Art Center is still the only free after-school program offered to teens, and is consistently the only free after-school program in the neighborhood.

We get financial support from private family foundations, corporate, state, and municipal funds, as well as donations from individuals. We are a small organization with only two full-time employees, and as a result, each wears many hats. As the Executive Director, I do most of the book-keeping, write the checks, balance the budget, and finalize all proposals and letters of inquiry for grants. I also manage the staff, teachers, interns, and on occasion, teach a class. Beth McGovern, our director of programs prepares all grants and support materials. She manages and teaches in-school programs, and also develops our media, newsletters, and is currently working on our new website. We have an accountant who files our quarterly taxes and we also get an audit at the end of our fiscal year.

The best advice I can give for finding money is to look at organizations that are similar to yours and find out who is supporting them. The Donors Forum is a great resource for researching grant foundations in the city. They have a Directory of Illinois Foundations that I believe, is one of the most valuable resources for any not-for-profit in Illinois. The Directory of Illinois Foundations can be purchased or get a look at it for free in the Forum's library.

The Center sends proposals and Letters of Inquiry (LOI) to prospective funders almost daily. It is important to continually look for new prospects in the funding world. Most grant foundations have limitations to their support. Some foundations give grants one year, and not the next; others give for three years, and then require you to take time-off. This can be stressful since, from year to year, you may have to replace the funding you received from the prior year. Moreover, each year your not-for-profit exists, the budget most likely will increase, and with this increase you need to find more money.

By sending out Letters of Inquiry every day, you insure that the foundations which do not know you and the work your organization is doing, eventually will. If they feel your organization fits their guidelines, then you may be asked to send a full proposal for the grant. Remember: Foundations run on a schedule and so should your not-for-profit. It is important to constantly be working towards getting your name out there for others to see. If you fall off of the schedule, you can miss deadlines and more importantly, lose contact with the grant foundations that are interested in your organization.

I can’t tell you how many times I tell nascent organizations not to get discouraged. It sometimes takes years for a foundation to recognize, or more importantly, support your organization. They need to see you are maintaining your program in the early years even without their support. So apply, apply, apply each year. I always said the third year was 'the charm'. My organization struggled the first two years of existence, then the third year came and the foundation world responded with support. This year we received a grant from a foundation that we had applied to every year for six years. I never give up on a foundation.

The Art Center is lucky in that it aligns with many foundations’ areas of focus. We are able to apply for grants that fund the array of things we do that the Art Center. We don’t, however, apply for ‘health and fitness’ grants just because we have a vegetable garden.

Don’t be wary of restricted grants. Many grants are restricted to specific programs we run, these can vary from: teachers’ salaries; to Chicago Public school art programs, to teaching youth 13 and older. The only difficulty with a restricted grant is the accounting and the audit of that grant.

Once you get a grant, is there anything special your organization must do to keep it? Most foundations will let you know how long they typically fund an organization. An organization can damage and sever this relationship by doing things like not completing a final report, not doing what you said you were going to do, not serving the amount of participants they require, or missing the deadline to receive another grant. The last can happen quite a lot it you do not keep a schedule of grant deadlines!


Sarah Ward is a registered art therapist with a master’s degree from The School of the Art Institute and has over fourteen years of experience in educating youth in the arts. She is responsible for developing and implementing art programming for the South Chicago Art Center, inviting visiting artists, supervising an AmeriCorps member and master level interns, and collaborating with community members and social service agencies to develop art classes. Need more information on the South Chicago Art Center? Email at:sarah@happyartcenter.org