This one didn't work out

More than two years have passed since I last published one of my grant applications.

The first time I did it was after I'd completed FACTOR's Artist Development program twice (something you're no longer allowed to do). The article containing my two applications still gets plenty of views from Google around each new application deadline to that program.

This time, though, I want to share an application that failed. (I'm aware of a well-traveled Instagram reel out there in our national scene about Canada Council grant denials. The conversation you and I are about to have here is quite different than that one.) It's the application I mentioned to you last month, in this subscriber-only video:

At the end of August, I applied to Creative BC's Music Industry Initiatives program, which falls under their Amplify BC umbrella of grants. I requested $9,945, and on the anniversary of my last night in Denmark, they declined the application. The feedback I got from Creative BC (stick around for discussion of that feedback at the end!) doesn't affect my next moves. I won't apply again and will no longer pursue what I outlined in the application.

Only one part of the outcome actually makes me feel bad: I wish that Kayla Price could've earned the vast majority of those funds over the next year. Working with Kayla on the gig list internship that laid the groundwork for this application was a joy, and I hope our paths cross again.

In the bigger picture, I'm cool with it. I get to keep a chip on my shoulder about Rhythm Changes never taking grant money, and we get to reinvent ourselves. Regarding the latter concept, here's what I said in the video linked above:

"If I don't get this grant, to me, that is a signal that I can take this checkpoint and tell myself, okay, this next era of Rhythm Changes? We do not have to keep doing it the same way that it's been done for the past few years. I am to some extent chafing against this model in my efforts to find a new cohort of subscribers, get to 100 subscribers, grow Rhythm Changes' revenue. I made some strides towards growing the free list by emphasizing the gig list so much and making that the front door where people come in. However, that hasn't worked out for me in terms of adding to the pool of subscribers and really growing the revenue of Rhythm Changes."

That's the subtext of everything you'll find below. On top of it being a fun look at how I describe to bureaucratic strangers what we do here, let it be a time capsule of what I previously intended Rhythm Changes to be: a rundown of strategies that I no longer need to use while continuing to bring you the goods.

Here's what I wrote for the application.

1

[WC: I filled out seven sections. My notes for you, which weren't in the original application, will appear in italics like this.]

Describe the project you are requesting funding for.

In 2022, I launched a service called “the gig list” (“TGL”, accessible at https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/gigs/) that has become an important piece of infrastructure for B.C.’s jazz scene. TGL is a webpage that lists hundreds of jazz and related shows in Metro Vancouver, updated daily. It is the flagship service of my website called Rhythm Changes (“RC”, https://www.rhythmchanges.ca/) which covers artists, events, and recordings in Canadian jazz, with distribution via a free weekly email plus an additional weekend email delivery for paying subscribers.

I’ve played music in the jazz scene for more than 15 years and have run RC and TGL mostly by myself over the past three-and-a-half years. However, in the fall of 2024, I ran an experiment regarding a new part-time contractor role at RC. I solicited applications for a ‘gig list internship’, interviewed multiple candidates, and hired a Capilano University jazz student, Kayla Price, to produce TGL with me for 7 months (Oct. 2024 to Apr. 2025). I paid Kayla with subscription profits. Her work was a success both operationally and in terms of strengthening RC as a community hub.

This project re-hires Kayla under a permanent part-time ‘gig list editor’ position at RC and seeks funding for the position’s first 13 months, from Nov. 2025 through Nov. 2026; paired with funds to cover critical hours I spend on TGL across those months, including maintenance and editing of RC and management of the contract role. Kayla has confirmed her availability to start in Nov. 2025 at my stipulated wage and hours: see vendor quotes in this application. [WC: as stated later in section 7, the wage was $30 at 19 hours a month. Those figures are more than what I paid for the gig list internship, which was $20 at 10 hours a month. We'll see later, in the feedback, that I might've been better off to have mentioned that gap.]

2

What is the gap or need in B.C.’s music industry that you see this project serving? How will the project serve this need?

Canadian jazz is a musical culture with specific ecology and social pathways. RC is one of the few media outlets with domain-specific knowledge of this ecology, especially in B.C., that is dedicated to covering it. RC has driven positive outcomes, like greater attendance at shows and wider listenership of new releases, for jazz in B.C. in a way that prior generations of music media once did. Thus, my tagline for RC has been “a home for creative, improvising, local music people”, and my mission statement for it has been “to make it more fun and easier to participate” in the scene I cover. [WC: as seen on the About page's first paragraph.] The development of RC is an investment in the specific ecology of the B.C. jazz scene.

TGL is the primary piece of infrastructure for RC’s mission. Through its publication in both the free weekly email at RC and the webpage, TGL has driven awareness and ticket sales for hundreds of Metro Vancouver jazz shows. I run RC with a jazz musician’s sensitivity to the needs of the scene, and my access to relevant interest groups (musicians, professionals, fans, venues, university students) is substantial. I’ve both discovered this access and inherited it. TGL had a de facto predecessor, the defunct (as of 2021) but long-running vancouverjazz.com A-Trane Calendar; I received the endorsement of its creator Nou Dadoun. [WC: Nou, thanks again for providing a letter of support.]

TGL has characteristics that make it quite different from many other live music listings. Here are three examples:

1. It is proactively ‘gathered’ via both public information and outreach, by people who are connected to the scene like Kayla and myself, as opposed to being built from submissions.
2. Its deep, narrow scope and straightforward format enables speedy publication of useful details, like very small shows or the names of every musician in a band - even with changes on short notice - that would be otherwise hard to keep up with.
3. Because RC is profitable thanks to individual subscribers, I'm highly motivated to do timely, thorough work and to do right by them.

3

If this is an annual or ongoing project, how is your project growing or evolving to respond to needs of B.C.’s music industry?

RC and TGL are indeed a going concern, having run for over three years and counting. My conviction in running RC is that in the future, music media must continue to serve small, regional subcultures in ways that broader outlets lack the capacity to. That is to say, live music listing projects will be numerous and will run more often in line with the three points I described above, as opposed to the way many all-genre local listings (even ones with a city-specific scope) operate. [WC: I'm subtweeting This Week In Van here, not ShowHub, whom I think are also the effective kind.]

In this future, RC is sustainable, having subscription profits to match against its minimal expenses, as well as local personnel who are highly present in the scene. The only existential threat to RC would be me continuing to run it by myself, failing to insulate it against any personal changes in my life that would hamper my work on it. Therefore, this project will carry the most important job at RC - editing TGL - beyond myself and give it to a capable person, Kayla, with a plan to have enough profits by the end of this runway to maintain the position permanently. I’ve enjoyed a lot of luck in being able to make time for running RC by myself so far; further investment can ensure that RC won’t be fragile.

4

Who will benefit from your project? How will you ensure participation from a broad range of people?

RC has enabled readers to learn more about and do more patronage of local artists’ work, whether those readers are fans or musician-peers. It has brought thousands of people, both audience and industry, closer to Canadian jazz and is growing. Demand to consume TGL’s upcoming listings via email on a recurring basis has been strong. The free weekly email readership, since inception in February 2022 with 88 day-one readers, has at least doubled every year:

• October 2022: 252 readers
• October 2023: 511
• October 2024: 1,166
• August 2025: 1,851 (potential to double again)

[WC: I'm gonna bold this – if you only take one thing away from this whole situation, know that paid subscription revenues have been flat from October 2024 to now. Flat, despite all those people who came in!]

Approximately 3% of each edition’s readers click on ticket links to shows, driving ticket sales.

Though web traffic is quite variable, TGL as a webpage receives between 1,000 and 3,000 weekly unique visitors. For both web visitors and email readers, the vast majority are located in Metro Vancouver, to the extent that my analytics can tell. Other media channels affiliated with RC, like my YouTube channel and the Rhythm Changes Podcast, also contribute several hundred more monthly impressions.

I’ve gathered a lot of feedback (beyond the metrics like web visitors and email readers that I’ve shared above) regarding how these characteristics have shaped RC into a valued platform. Musician-peers, fans, and indeed strangers approach me regularly at jazz events to thank me for doing TGL. They tell me that it helps them attend more shows and be part of the scene to a greater extent, because TGL makes it more fun and easier for them to participate. I’ve had these interactions not just in Metro Vancouver, but on Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan with people who say they’ve become aware of jazz in BC due to RC’s content, and/or attended shows while in Vancouver thanks to TGL. From the beginning, RC has had real-world impact that I feel when I step into local jazz venues.

5

Describe your communications and marketing strategy. How will you promote your project to involve other members of B.C.’s music industry?

The metric at RC that is my north star is the free weekly email’s number of readers. A high percentage of new readers sign up after visiting TGL. To some extent, everything else is a function of that free weekly readership: the percentage of those readers who are paid subscribers [WC: I bolded that for you, yes this is the big big big big issue, this is the key! If this isn't true, things have to change!], the number of clicks on ticket links to local shows, and the future potential of RC to be a hub for the jazz sector.

Notable longtime readers include key personnel from arguably the three most visible stakeholder organizations in Vancouver jazz today - the Coastal Jazz & Blues Society, the Cellar Music Group, and Infidels Jazz - whose letters of support I’ve attached to this application. [WC: thanks again, folks.] Other organizations whom I’ve come to know through my editorial coverage at RC, or from adding their shows to TGL, include the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, the NOW Society, Music on Main, and Early Music Vancouver to name a few; and new media peers like This Week in Van, ShowHub Promotions Inc., Locals Lounge, and YVR Concerts. RC, as represented personally by myself as a trusted figure in the scene, is a congregation point for all these organizations, as well as for hundreds of individual musicians. The more time I can allow myself to inhabit this role, the stronger it will be. Therefore, delegating the gig list into the work of a permanent contractor has been a high priority.

My editorial work at RC continues to build bridges in the scene via the variety of subjects I cover. The following is an assortment of my recurring editorial features and their subjects:

• 'Rhythm Changes Across Canada’, a seasonal feature with reviews of new Canadian jazz albums
• 'Fresh Songs’, a monthly local feature that reviews individual songs and crosses over into other genres, particularly through the presence of jazz-trained session musicians on multi-genre artists' new songs; there are many such musicians, and individuals like Kayla and I know them
• 'RCTV', a YouTube interview series of Canadian guests
• '10 Things', a monthly roundup column for paying subscribers with coverage of live shows I’ve attended, plus other timely stories in the scene

[WC: as I suggested recently in "The last 10 Things?", this recurring-feature strategy is coming to an end as a result of the application failure. We'll talk more in the year-end letter.]

Additionally, I’ve published hundreds of individual articles to both the free weekly email and paid subscription audiences. I have reported at times on challenging stories in the scene [WC: lol], helping form a coherent record of situations that matter to jazz fans and musicians but that other outlets wouldn’t have a good view of. I will have more time to make better editorial coverage, via these recurring features and more, with Kayla in the part-time position of gig list editor.

Having TGL as the ‘front door’ is a large part of how I contribute to the growth of the Canadian jazz sector. Because most RC readers up to this point have come from TGL, the establishment of TGL in the most resilient form possible is of paramount importance to RC’s role as community infrastructure.

6

Do you intend to continue this project in future years, and what are your plans? How will you sustain this project financially?

RC, given its growth history, has the potential to reach annual gross profits of ~$10,000+ by Nov. 2026. [WC: this projection would include some non-subscription revenues, like, say, a festival partnering with me to produce a series of Instagram videos themed around a phone hotline or something.] Profits would then fully fund the gig list editor position and possibly also my own critical hours, securing TGL indefinitely, hence why my project seeks funding for these first 13 months. I could then consider delegating my critical time as well, potentially to Kayla assuming she has accumulated over a year’s experience at RC by that time.

7

How will you measure the success of this project? What are the measurable outcomes of your project? Please use the following chart:

Project Goals: What do you hope to accomplish?

• Establish TGL as a resilient, high-effort live music listing service that meets the needs of the Vancouver/B.C./Canadian jazz scene, and in doing so supports RC’s mission (“make it more fun and easier to participate”).
• Overcome the fragile situation of TGL depending on my own time.

Activity: What activities will achieve that?

• Re-hire Kayla Price under a permanent part-time ‘gig list editor’ position at RC, which will start in Nov. 2025.
• Cover critical hours I spend on TGL from Nov. 2025 through Nov. 2026.

Measurable Outcomes: Break this activity into components or results that you can measure.

• Kayla’s work: 19 hours per month, $30 per hour, 13 months.
• I spend only a few critical hours per month on TGL (funded by the remainder of the requested amount). [WC: this came out to $2,535. In reality, that's about what I'd pay in income taxes on the grant award receivable, so I wouldn't really get to take it home.]
• The hours I will have newly available thanks to Kayla’s work can support my marketing efforts and social connection in the scene, i.e. the maintenance of RC’s strong growth (doubling free weekly email audience every year).

Evaluation: How will you know if you achieved your goals? List qualitative or quantitative ways to assess whether your project was successful.

• Free weekly doubling again from fall 2025 to 2026: target of ~4,000 readers by Oct. 2026. [WC: we will no longer aim for this target.]
• Profits growing to ~$10,000+ by Nov. 2026, which will fund the gig list editor position from then on.
• Retention of Kayla as the gig list editor through ideally all of the 13-month period.
• Maintenance of 3% click rate in free weekly, which facilitates RC’s boost to local shows.

Okay

That's what I wrote for the application.

Because you're still here, let's continue the discussion!

Why did ShowHub get this grant when I didn't?

I wrote the following before receiving feedback from Creative BC on Wednesday, Nov. 5. The next section will share that feedback!

I have no jealousy nor desire to copy them, just curiosity toward how Creative BC looks at it. My default view is positive-sum, which means I saw the emergence of ShowHub and their successful application as a sign that I was more likely to also succeed. Here are some factors I'd guess were in ShowHub's favour:

• I didn't incorporate a dedicated company and thus wasn't as legible. In my pre-application phone calls with the program's director, it took a while to break down where Rhythm Changes sits among all my projects as an individual.
• I'm a lone wolf rather than being one of a couple co-founders; I suspect public-sector Canadians prefer to back co-founders and/or find "individualism" rancid.
• I focused too much on impacts to audiences versus the same to artists/professionals and to venues/presenters, which have always been ShowHub's focus.
• I might've misinterpreted the Project Goals part of, or all of, section 7. Perhaps Creative BC wanted to see me discuss impacts on the industry, not what I hoped to accomplish at RC. If that's the case, I was so far from what they were looking for that the scoring could've suffered a fatal blow.
• Thanks to your generous support, we have revenue; ShowHub is pre-revenue and thus needed it more, and they might've won many scoring points by elucidating a large number of unpaid hours that already went into the project. In their Monday newsletters, they write in the footer, "[W]e received a grant to help with startup costs"; that framing may match the program better than mine.

Feedback!

Yes, I got feedback in time to share it with you today.

I was right about multiple of the above speculative points. Here are quotes from Creative BC's email to me:

• "This activity has been previously funded using subscriber fees: why is additional funding needed now? [Readers can understand/infer that the idea is to generate enough profit through this investment to install the TGL position permanently]." – matches the point about ShowHub being pre-revenue.
• "The emphasis throughout this application is on the benefit to fans and newsletter readers: it would be great to see more emphasis on the impact of this project on musicians, and the music industry itself [the latter of which is the focus of this funding program]." – matches a key difference I perceived between me and ShowHub.

And here are the other points of constructive feedback they wrote:

• "How can you tell that The Gig List is increasing awareness and ticket sales at shows? Are you basing this on data, or qualitative inputs?" – I dunno how I'd illuminate this more than my healthy click rate, in the absence of venues' private sales data. Each of you presenter-folks who wrote letters probably said something that supported this claim. I infer that they didn't actually read the letters of support.
• "Justice, Equity, Decolonization, Diversity, and Inclusion scores were not competitive with other successful projects in this intake. This criterion can be addressed through factors beyond demographics and lived experience, especially for a genre like jazz: it can also be addressed (implicitly or explicitly) through hiring choices, marketing and audience/industry engagement tactics, and the like." – I requested more detail from them about what they wanted to see me do here, haven't heard back yet.
• "Would like to see a more comprehensive marketing and outreach strategy, given that one of the project's evident goals is to increase mailing list and subscriber activity." – That's fair. My justification for why I didn't get to talking about Meta ads spend that grew the free weekly, is because I wasn't seeking funding for ad spend. I suppose I also didn't talk enough about what I'd do with my extra time.

That's all for now. I hope more people share their applications; it's hard to do maintenance unless you open the hood.