- Location:
- Dendron, VA
- Grant Cycle:
- 2023
- Amount:
- $8,000
- Type of Grant:
- General Operating Support
- Disciplines:
- LGBTQIA+, Music
Our mission at Grimalkin is to mentor and support trans and queer musicians, particularly BIPOC and disabled artists, using an artist-centered holistic approach to break down barriers, create new systems and structures of support, and expand the reach of marginalized voices.
Grimalkin is transforming the music industry, our world, and documented history with artist-centered structures of support through education, mentoring and production services provided through our ever-growing international network of trans, queer, BIPOC, disabled, and neurodiverse creatives.
We provide trans, queer, BIPOC, disabled, and neurodiverse artists support and access towards living authentic, healthy and fulfilling lives through partnerships and connections with other individuals, collectives, organizations, and nonprofits.
We envision a world where dedicated artists, especially marginalized artists, can make a living wage and have access to resources that allow them to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. We are creating new systems of support in an effort to set an example for new standards in music and art.
We were founded on the premise of marginalized artists supporting each other. We also believe art and music have immense healing powers and our work helps transform society’s perception in recognizing that art and music have great value and are essential to our lives, well-being, and for the health and welfare of our community.
Grimalkin is run and led by queer, trans and BIPOC folks. We educate the community through our releases, marketing, promotion, outreach, blog, workshops, and production services on the importance of racial and LGBTQIA+ equity and collaborate with artists and other mutual aid organizers and organizations to provide support and resources through collaborative efforts within and outside our community.
Grim Works provides educational and mentoring and production services to marginalized artists through an international network of trans, queer and BIPOC artists, musicians, videographers, producers, and studios. We currently have 21 mentors and 32 members of the production network from all over the world. We fundraise and apply for grants to fund these services. In 2022, we held 7 online art and music workshops and 3 so far in 2023. We use a pay what you can model for all our events. Our goal is to continuously expand these networks and support services.
We received our 501(c)(3) status in February 2022 and we voted in our board and bylaws in May 2022. We established a Metrics in November 2022 to set goals and evaluate our areas of strength and improvement to assess 2022, and we used this data to create a Metrics for 2023 and set goals for 2023 and beyond.
We’ve been able to retain over 80 artists and community members, while also expanding and working with several new artists every year. We are currently mentoring and supporting over 50 artists in our community.
Our advocate program has successfully expanded our grassroots outreach. Grimalkin Advocates help us expand our reach on social media, help us fundraise online and in-person, speak about us during their music sets at shows, and help us gain new newsletter sign-ups. We currently have 16 artists committed to being Advocates and we are working on expanding that this year.
Last year, we held 11 in-person events, helping us bring our mission and vision to more community members and growing our outreach. We created a visual and interactive presentation to present at our events to facilitate this. Additionally, we held our inaugural Grimalkin Music Fest in Richmond, VA and it was also live streamed. The Wire Magazine covered it in their paper magazine and on their website. This year we will have had a total of 7 in-person events so far in 2023 through April. We also held 25 virtual music events (listening parties and artist interviews) and 5 so far in 2023 through April.