Tourist Development Council Grants - St. Johns Cultural Council

TDC Arts Culture & Heritage GRANTS

The Tourist Development Council Arts, Culture & Heritage (ACH) funding program is administered by the St. Johns Cultural Council pursuant to an agreement with the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners.

The intent of the ACH Grant Program is to increase the positive economic impacts of local tourism by encouraging exemplary arts, culture and heritage programming and supporting enhanced advertising and promotion of these quality tourism opportunities.

Applicants have included year-round museums and programs, annual cultural events, and community theaters, demonstrating the wide variety of quality arts, culture and heritage options that St. Johns County offers to visitors and residents. Funded programming must demonstrate artistic excellence and merit and bring visitors to stay in St. Johns County. All grantees are required to spend a minimum of 25% of their grant award to market their events, programs, exhibitions, and performances outside of the St. Johns County market.

Scroll to learn more about upcoming TDC ACH grant opportunities and get information for current grantees, including approved logos.

Register for our weekly Local Arts Newsletter HERE to receive updates about workshops, the application process, and related deadlines.

fy2024 tdc aRTS, cULTURE AND hERITAGE Grant iNFORMATION

GRANT REQUIREMENTS

FY2024 Grant Guidelines

View or download the FY2024 Grant Guidelines here. The deadline to submit your FY2024 application was 5:00 PM on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Access the new application portal here to view your FY2024 application.

Grant Workshops

Every applicant must attend a grant workshop before submitting an application. Times and dates for the FY2025 Grant Workshops will be listed here as soon as they are available next spring.

All workshops are held in person at The Waterworks, 184 San Marco Avenue, on the following 2023 dates:

ADDITIONAL APPLICATION ASSISTANCE

Applicants who attend a grant workshop may be able to schedule individual appointments for additional assistance with the application. More information about this opportunity will be provided at the workshops.

FY2024 FUNDING RECOMMENDATIONS

View the FY2024 Funding Recommendations here. These recommendations will be reviewed by the TDC on August 21, 2023. If approved, the TDC will make these recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners, who will vote to approve the recommendations as part of the County budget at the BOCC meeting scheduled for September 19, 2023.

TDC ACH GRANT PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Application Process

Applicants attend a grant workshop that goes over eligibility, application requirements, and scoring criteria and have the option to meet with and email St. Johns Cultural Council staff with any questions up to one week prior to the submission deadline. Grant applications and support materials are submitted online by the posted deadline. The grant period is October 1 through September 30 each year.

Staff Review

Applications that are submitted online by the deadline are reviewed for basic eligibility; staff do not provide subjective evaluations or comments on the content or quality of any grant application.

Evaluation Team Review

An Evaluation Team reviews each application, including support materials, before the meeting and assign preliminary points and written comments based on the evaluation criteria and rubric. These scores and comments are available upon request to all applicants after the meeting.

Grant Award Approval

After the panel review, the TDC, with input from the Cultural Council, provides funding recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners for final approval, usually in September.