What Happens When a Council Actually Asks: "How Do We Make Our Grants Program Better?"
Most grants programs evolve incrementally. A new question gets added here. Assessment criteria get tweaked there. Guidelines expand to address last year's confusing applications. It's the organisational equivalent of that old joke about designing a horse by committee - somehow you end up with a camel.
Not because anyone made bad decisions. Just because that's how organisations work - small adjustments, practical compromises, incremental changes in response to immediate needs.
The result? Programs that kind of work, but could work better. For everyone.
And "everyone" includes the staff administering the program - fielding confused emails, answering the same questions repeatedly, managing laborious assessment processes, and struggling with providing feedback that doesn't quite address why applications were unsuccessful.
So when Inner West Council approached me to overhaul their cultural grants program - one of their most popular and heavily applied-for funding rounds - the brief wasn't "fix what's broken." It was: "How do we make this genuinely excellent?"
That's rare. And it's worth talking about.
Why Grants Programs Need Strategic Overhauls (Not Just Tweaks)
Here's what happens with most grants programs over time:
Year 1: Clear, simple application. Straightforward criteria.
Year 2: Assessors notice applicants aren't addressing X, so you add a question about X.
Year 3: Someone submits a project that doesn't fit the intent, so you add clarifying language to the guidelines.
Year 4: Your funding priorities shift slightly, so you adjust the criteria.
Year 5: You're up to 20 questions, 6 pages of guidelines, assessment criteria that overlap in confusing ways, and applicants are overwhelmed. Your grants inbox is full of clarification requests, and your assessment panels are taking twice as long as they used to.
No one meant for this to happen. Each change made sense at the time. But the cumulative effect is a program that's harder to navigate, harder to assess, and not serving anyone as well as it could.
This is exactly what I see when I review grants programs. Not incompetence. Just organisational drift.
The fix isn't another tweak. It's stepping back and asking: What are we actually trying to achieve here? And does our current structure support that?
What a Grants Program Review Actually Involves
People think "grants program review" means proofreading guidelines and maybe simplifying a question or two.
It's way more strategic than that.
Here's what I'm doing with Inner West Council:
1. Auditing the Current Program
What's working:
Which parts of the application are generating strong, clear responses?
Where are assessors getting the information they need to make decisions?
What's the applicant experience for people who've been successful?
What's not working:
Where are applicants struggling or misunderstanding what's being asked?
Which questions consistently produce vague, unhelpful answers?
Where are assessors having to guess or make assumptions?
What feedback are unsuccessful applicants receiving, and is it actually useful?
Where are staff spending copious amounts of time where they shouldn't be? Maybe on clarification emails or managing workarounds for unclear processes?
This audit isn't about blame. It's about understanding the current state so we can design something better.
2. Reviewing Assessment Criteria
Assessment criteria should do two things:
Reflect the actual priorities of the funding body
Be clear enough that applicants know what assessors are scoring
Too often, criteria are vague ("artistic merit," "community benefit") without explaining what those terms actually mean in practice.
Or they're so broad that everything and nothing fits.
Or they've drifted away from what the council actually cares about, because priorities shifted but criteria didn't.
My job is to make sure the criteria:
Align with Inner West Council's current cultural policy and strategic priorities
Are specific enough to guide applicants
Are assessable (you can actually score them, not just have opinions about them)
Don't overlap or contradict each other
3. Redesigning Application Questions
This is where the real work happens.
Every question in a grant application should have a clear purpose:
What information does this give assessors?
How does it connect to assessment criteria?
Can applicants reasonably answer this in the word limit?
Are we asking for the same information in multiple places?
Most importantly: is this written in an accessible way designed to produce the best outcome from the applicant? If they win, we win.
Bad questions produce bad applications. Not because applicants aren't trying-because the questions aren't clear about what's actually needed.
Good questions make it easy for strong applicants to demonstrate their strengths and easy for assessors to identify them. They also dramatically reduce the admin burden - fewer clarification emails, faster assessment processes, and clearer outcomes.
I'm redesigning Inner West's application questions to:
Eliminate redundancy
Clarify what's actually being assessed
Make it easier for applicants to provide substantive, specific answers
Reduce the cognitive load (fewer, clearer questions beat more, vague ones)
4. Improving the Applicant Experience
Here's something most funding bodies don't think about: the application process is your relationship with the arts community.
If it's confusing, opaque, or feels like a bureaucratic maze, that's what people remember. Even if they get funded.
And if they get rejected with generic feedback that doesn't help them improve? That relationship is damaged.
So part of this review is asking:
What does it feel like to apply for this grant?
Are the guidelines actually helpful, or just covering legal bases?
Is the application process accessible (language, structure, length)?
What happens after someone applies - do they know what to expect?
If they're unsuccessful, do they receive feedback that helps them strengthen future applications?
Can the feedback process be streamlined so it's genuinely useful without creating an unsustainable workload for staff?
This isn't about making grants "easier to get." It's about making the process fair, transparent, and respectful of the time and effort applicants invest.
5. Strengthening Assessment Frameworks
Assessors need clear, consistent frameworks to evaluate applications fairly.
Without this, you get:
Inconsistent scoring between assessors
Bias creeping in (favouring familiar names, certain art forms, specific language styles)
Difficulty justifying decisions to unsuccessful applicants
Assessment panels that take twice as long as they should because assessors are debating what criteria even mean
Increased administrative load managing queries and appeals
A strong assessment framework includes:
Clear definitions of what each criterion means
Guidance on what "strong," "moderate," and "weak" responses look like
Consistency checks so all assessors are applying the same standards
Transparency that allows decisions to be explained and defended
This benefits everyone. Assessors can work efficiently and fairly. Applicants trust the process. Council funding goes to the projects that genuinely align with their priorities.
Why This Matters (Beyond Inner West Council)
Inner West Council could have just tweaked their existing program. Added a question here, clarified a guideline there.
Instead, they recognized that incremental fixes weren't going to address the underlying issues. They wanted a genuine overhaul-a program designed strategically from the ground up, informed by what they've learned but not constrained by how it's always been done.
That takes leadership. And it takes a willingness to invest in getting it right.
The result will be a grants program that (I hope):
Attracts stronger applications because the process is clearer
Produces better outcomes because funding goes to well-positioned projects
Builds trust with the arts community because the process is fair and transparent
Operates more efficiently because assessors have the tools they need
Reduces administrative burden through streamlined processes and fewer clarification requests
Actually delivers on council's cultural priorities instead of just processing applications
And here's the thing: most councils and funding bodies could benefit from this kind of review.
Not because their programs are broken. But because programs drift. Priorities shift. Communities change. And the application process that worked five years ago might not be serving anyone well today.
The Bottom Line
Inner West Council didn't just want a functioning grants program. They wanted one that genuinely serves their community and reflects their commitment to supporting artists and cultural activity in the area.
That's the kind of work I love doing.
If your organisation is sitting on a grants program that's "fine but could be better," or if you're launching a new funding initiative and want to get it right from the start, let's talk.
I work with councils, government bodies, and arts organisations across Australia to design and refine funding programs that actually work.
Book a consultation to discuss how I can help strengthen your grants program or other cultural initiatives.
Cat Dibley is an arts consultant and strategist with over 13 years of experience running organisations, managing programs, and sitting on both sides of the grants table as an applicant, assessor, and program designer. She currently consults to Inner West Council on grants program review and works 1:1 with artists and creatives on grant applications and creative business strategy.