Lock, Stock and Barrel

A big reason that grant applications are not funded is that they are incomplete. I double checked this with several arts granting agencies. Each Program Officer I asked told me grant applications were most frequently disqualified because they were incomplete - not every question was answered or there was missing information.

Then I got brave and asked what percentage of applications submitted were incomplete. You’ll never guess the answer – it was most applications! I kid you not. Now, I dug a bit deeper and asked what “most” meant. For reasons unknown, they would not tell me.

Despite not knowing the absolute truth – I do think that we can engage in a bit of estimation to identify the number of grants seriously in the running. My guess would be that “most” means 60% (probably higher but I suspect it wouldn’t be less). That means that if you apply for a grant along with 199 other artists – about 120 grant applications would be rejected out of hand. This narrows your competition down from 199 other applications to a mere 80.

So, I guess this means that we give 'em what they want - like totally.

Note on the phrase – Lock, Stock and Barrel (meaning “the whole thing”) – the earliest use of the phrase appears to come from the letters of Sir Walter Scott in 1817. "Like the High-landman's gun, she wants stock, lock, and barrel, to put her into repair." Thank you to http://www.phrases.org.uk/