The Scottsdale League for the Arts (SLA), the organization that puts on the Scottsdale Culinary Festival each year, announced $200,000 in donations and grants to support local art and arts education programs in 2013-14. Furthermore, the SLA has created a new, more efficient grant application process as part of its yearly call to local non-profits to submit an application for funding, a program which has provided more than $3.7 million in funding since 2002. New for 2013, the SLA has created an online grants application, which will be available in early July at www.leagueforthearts.org. The grant application package must be completed by Thursday, August 8.

“The Scottsdale League for the Arts is pleased to announce the 2013 Scottsdale Culinary Festival was a huge success and we are excited to offer grants ranging in size from $1k to $15k this year,” says Leslie Rycroft, Vice President of the SLA Board of Directors and Grants Committee Chair. To qualify, applicants must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, incorporated and providing services or programs in the arts or art education within Maricopa County. The SLA will entertain applications from a variety of organizations, provided the focus of the project for which funding is requested is directly related to the arts and/or arts education.

Also new for 2013, the League is requesting that all grant seekers submit their financial data to the Cultural Data Project, which offers a unique system that enables arts and cultural organizations to enter financial, programmatic and operational data into a standardized online form. According to Rycroft, “Many grant-making organizations are using the CDP as it gives the funders a great tool to see all the organizations’ data in the same format, and also gives the reporting organizations a beneficial management tool.” What’s more, the CDP is free to arts organizations seeking funding.

The timeline for the SLA’s 2013-14 grants process is as follows. Online grant applications will be available in early July, are due on Thursday, August 8th, and are scheduled to be funded in mid-September 2013.