Mock Grant Panel

The Mock Grant Panel offers an opportunity to practice writing a grant application for your arts-based project, and to get formal feedback from a review committee. Artists of all disciplines, collectives, and emerging arts organizations without nonprofit status are invited to submit applications with budgets up to $50,000. The applications for 2025 have closed. Please stay tuned for more information in autumn.

About the Mock Grant Panel

The Mock Grant Panel is divided into two submission pools: one for applicants who have more experience or success with past applications, and one for those who may be first-time applicants, or who have not had successful past applications. Our hope is that this will provide applicants with a more equitable opportunity to receive helpful feedback no matter where they are in their creative careers. Winning applications in each category will receive a $500 no-strings-attached cash prize that can be put towards making applicant’s projects a reality.
A three-person review committee uses MAPS fiscal sponsorship program application criteria to rate and rank all applications. They publicly discuss and comment on each application, similar to the Regional Arts Commission’s citizen review panels, on Thursday, February 6, 2025 from 6:00-9:00 pm at The Luminary. The event is free and open to the public, and attendees will receive a gift card good for one MAPS Consultation.
Important Dates for 2025 Mock Grant Panel:
  • Monday, December 2, 2024: Mock Grant Panel applications open
  • Monday, January 20, 2025: Mock Grant Panel applications close
  • Thursday, February 6, 2025: Mock Grant Panel Live Event

2025 Panelists

Kathryn Bentley is the Founder and Curator of The Alaiyo Collective, which is dedicated to developing creative works and utilizing inclusive theater practices to lift social consciousness. Kathryn has over 40 years of experience as an actor, director and teaching artist. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater Directing and completed a 20-year career as a university professor. She has performance and directing credits with companies such as Cleveland Playhouse, Buffalo Studio Arena, The St. Louis Black Rep and St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. Kathryn is a co-founder of Action Art Collaborative which uses art to build community and ignite social change. She is a St. Louis Regional Arts Commission (RAC) Community Arts Training Institute Fellow and a member of their advisory board and faculty. In 2014, she was one of the premiere recipients of the RAC Artist Fellowship and in 2020 she received the Outstanding Working Artist St. Louis Visionary Award. Kathryn is a Certified Diversity FaciliTrainer and Cultural Sensitivity Specialist.
Mee Jey is a multidisciplinary artist from India. She was awarded St. Louis Visonery Artist Award and Mother Art Prize in London for the year 2022-23. A Sam Fox Graduate and RAC CAT alumni Mee Jey has been A-i-R at the Laumeier Sculpture Park, Kranzberg Arts Foundation, Craft Alliance and Creative Lab Fellow at Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis in recent years. Currently she is Gallery and Art & Design Manager at COCA. 
Lizzy Petersen is a poet and community artist from St. Louis, MO, where she works in fundraising at Nine PBS. In 2021, she served as an Interchange Fellow through the Mid-America Arts Alliance to support her work with OutsideLitMag.com, a student-run literary arts magazine and writing workshop held after school in partnership with Saint Louis Public Schools. She was a 2021 Resident Artist for the Kranzberg Arts Foundation and part of the 2019/2020 Community Arts Training (CAT) cohort at the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. Her poetry has appeared in december, Image, and Ninth Letter, among others. She currently serves on the board of the Saint Louis Poetry Center, the new home of OutsideLitMag.com, where she also co-curates the Observable Reading Series.

Important Resources

Application Questions
Application Guidelines
Review Criteria (MAPS Fiscal Sponsorship
FAQs
Sample Budget
How to create an artist CV
Have questions about the Mock Grant Panel? Email us at  [email protected].