Timescales
Questions for you and your team
- What work do we need to complete the commission? And who will do that work?
- What are our organisation’s planning cycles?
- How does this commission tie with our annual programmes (or other timeframe)?
- How does this commission tie with our annual budgets (or other timeframe)?
- The schedules of activities and work for both the organisation and the artist may change due to unforeseen circumstances. It is important to build openness into the schedule, ensuring flexibility where possible for slippage at each stage of the commission, for both artist and the organisation.
Institutions will all have different planning cycles and financial year structures. For example, a university usually follows the academic term. Regardless of what the year is structured as, being transparent about this with the artists you work with is helpful.
Be clear from the outset on what reporting requirements you might have that will impact on the artist.
Planning cycles can offer ways of structuring your year, your time, and your projects. And if budget cycles are not annual but perhaps every two or three years, planning projects with the budget you have for projects that will come into fruition when budget is complete can allow you to spread activity into fallow periods.
This is a live toolkit. Please help us to develop and improve it by leaving comments in our feedback form. Thank you.
