State Arts Agency Panels: Key Issues and Strategies

NASAA is pleased to announce the release of a new Strategy Sampler, State Arts Agency Panels: Key Issues and Strategies, exemplifying successful strategies state and jurisdictional arts agencies (SAAs) have employed to approach changes to grant panel practices and processes.

SAAs are consistently evaluating their approach to panels and how they review and adjudicate grants. With continued constraints on capacity, scrutiny of public funding and evolving technologies, the pressure to optimize these processes is increasing. Drawing on interviews from SAAs across the United States, State Arts Agency Panels: Key Issues and Strategies provides an overview of emerging models of changes to grant panel processes and practices, spotlighting different case studies of SAAs that have recently made changes. The case studies represent a variety of strategies that address various contexts.

Key findings from the report include:

• State arts agencies consistently identified a number of key issues related to panels. These include, but are not limited to, time constraints; limited staff capacity coupled with significant increases in application volume; potential bias in panel scoring metrics and panel composition; and challenges with panelist preparation, outreach and engagement.
• State arts agency panel changes tended to fall into three buckets: eliminating panels and using an eligibility or compliance model; an independent review model; and various panel efficiencies, such as virtual panels or improved panelist training.
• Changes made to panel processes rarely reflect a one-time change. Instead, the case studies demonstrate an iterative approach to panel changes and highlight the strategic importance of evaluating feedback and data with each grant cycle.

NASAA continually monitors SAA programmatic and policy trends. For more resources, please visit NASAA’s Research page.