Even those who have been artists for decades have no idea how this world of artist opportunity works, and why it's so random. Let us decode it, shall we?
Most artists figure out what a "grant" actually is by accident: a professor mentions one in passing, a friend gets one and won't fully explain how, or you stumble on a call for entries and have no idea if it's real. Art schools rarely teach this directly, and the working artists who do understand it usually keep the knowledge inside their own circle. That's not malicious, it's just how a scarce, competitive system tends to behave: information stays with the people who already have access.
Here's what that scarcity actually looks like: the Ford Foundation funds under 1% of the unsolicited applications it receives. The National Endowment for the Arts funds under 10%. Most artists apply into that math with no idea how funders actually decide, what a fee is supposed to cover, or how to tell a real open call from a scam, so a rejection reads as "not good enough" when it's often just "didn't know the rules."
Dezi exists because we think that's backwards. This is a plain-language breakdown of how artist funding actually works: the difference between a grant, a fellowship, and a residency, why funders fund what they fund, what entry fees mean, how to tell a legitimate open call from a scam, and what "unrestricted funding" really means. No insider knowledge required to read it.
What's the difference between a grant, a fellowship, and a residency?
A grant is money awarded for a project, a body of work, or (less commonly) general support of your practice, with no expectation that you give anything back except, sometimes, a final report on how you used it. Grants can be restricted (tied to a specific project or use) or unrestricted (yours to use however supports your practice).
A fellowship usually combines funding with a structured relationship: mentorship, a cohort of other fellows, sometimes public programming or a culminating exhibition. Fellowships often expect more of your time and visibility in exchange for the funding.
A residency provides space, time, and sometimes a stipend, but the primary thing being offered is not cash, it's a place to work (often requiring relocation for weeks or months) plus community and resources. Some residencies are fully funded; many others charge the artist a fee to attend, which is worth knowing going in.
None of these is inherently "better." They serve different needs: a grant if you need funding without giving up time or location, a fellowship if you want community and mentorship alongside money, a residency if you need dedicated space and time away from your normal routine.
Dezi: the Dezi Art Prize is a grant, specifically an unrestricted cash grant. Two winners each receive $1,000 with no requirement on how it's spent, no relocation, and no ongoing time commitment. It's worth naming this explicitly because grants go by a lot of aliases, "prize," "award," "open call," even though they're structurally the same thing: money with no strings attached, for different audiences and framed for different intentions.
Why do funders actually give this money away?
Not purely out of generosity, and understanding that isn't cynical, it's useful. Private foundations in the US are legally required to distribute roughly 5% of their assets every year to keep their tax-exempt status. That distribution requirement is a real driver of why grant cycles exist and why they run on a schedule, funders often have money they need to move by a deadline, not just money they're waiting to be moved by the perfect application.
Funders also fund what supports their own mission, not "the most deserving artist" in some abstract sense. A foundation built around environmental themes will favor work that speaks to that. A prize built for early-career artists will favor applicants who read as early-career. None of this makes a funder bad or a grant fake, it means every funder is playing a specific game with specific rules, and your job as an applicant is to learn what that game actually is before you apply, not to assume pure artistic merit is the only variable being scored. Reading a funder's mission statement, past grantees, and stated priorities before applying isn't optional homework, it's the actual skill.
Are entry fees for art grants and open calls normal?
Yes, but the fee should be proportionate and the organization should be transparent about where it goes. A reasonable fee typically covers jury review, administrative costs, and platform fees, especially for smaller organizations without institutional funding behind them. It becomes a red flag when the fee is high relative to the award, when there's no clarity on how the fee is used, or when the organization is cagey about its finances when asked directly.
A useful gut check: can you find out who runs the open call, whether it's a real, registered organization, and roughly where the money goes? If that information isn't available or the organization is evasive, be cautious.
Dezi: the Dezi Art Prize offers fee waivers to most applicants who ask for it. Our general fee is $30, and every dollar of that fee funds the cash grants and jury honorariums. That's the level of transparency worth expecting from any open call before you pay a fee.
How do you spot a scam open call?
A few concrete signs to check before you pay any fee or submit work:
- No named, checkable organization behind it. A real grant or prize is run by an organization or LLC you can look up, not an anonymous website.
- No named jury or selection process. Legitimate opportunities are usually willing to name who is judging and what criteria they're using. "Our expert panel" with no names attached is a yellow flag.
- Vague or shifting terms. If the rules, deadlines, or prize amounts change without explanation, or the fine print contradicts the marketing copy, be careful.
- Pressure and urgency with no substance. Constant "only 3 spots left" messaging paired with thin information about the actual opportunity.
- Rights grabs buried in the fine print. Always check what you're actually agreeing to regarding ownership and licensing of your submitted work (see below).
- No way to verify past winners or past cycles. A first-time open call isn't automatically suspicious, everything starts somewhere, but an organization with no history and no way to verify anything about it deserves more scrutiny before you pay a fee.
Dezi: every one of these checks holds up for the Dezi Art Prize. It's run by Phistream LLC, a real, checkable US company. The jury is five named, verifiable arts professionals with public profiles, not an anonymous panel. Winners are scored against a public rubric, not picked at random. You can verify all of it, the jurors, the LLC, the judging criteria, before you ever apply.
What does "unrestricted funding" mean?
Unrestricted funding means the artist decides how to use the money, with no requirement to spend it on a specific project, materials, or purpose, and usually no reporting requirement afterward. This matters because a lot of artist funding is restricted: tied to producing a specific piece, documented and reported on, or bound to categories like "materials only." Unrestricted funding can go toward rent, health insurance, childcare, studio costs, or straight into your practice, whatever actually removes a barrier for you. It's a meaningfully different (and rarer) kind of support than project-based funding.
Dezi: the $1,000 each Dezi Art Prize winner receives is fully unrestricted. There's no required project, no materials-only clause, and no report due afterward. It's the artist's money to use however actually supports their practice, whether that's rent, equipment, or just breathing room to make work.
Who owns the work you submit when you apply?
This should always be spelled out in the terms of any grant, fellowship, or open call you apply to, and it's worth reading before you submit anything. In most legitimate situations, you retain full copyright to your own work. What you're typically granting is a limited, non-exclusive license, meaning the organization can display or promote your work in connection with the opportunity (a website feature, marketing for the program), without taking ownership away from you. If a call's terms ask for anything broader than that, exclusive rights, resale rights, or an open-ended license to use your work however they want, read that section closely before you apply.
Dezi: applicants to the Dezi Art Prize keep full copyright to their work. Applying grants Dezi a limited, non-exclusive license to display and promote the work in connection with the prize, nothing more, and it's spelled out in full in our Terms.
Do grants and fellowships quietly exclude students and early-career artists?
Often, yes, even when it isn't stated outright. Many well-known grants expect an established exhibition history, gallery representation, or a track record of professional sales, which functionally excludes current students, recent graduates, and self-taught artists with no institutional backing. This isn't always malicious, established funders often have to manage extremely high application volume, and prior track record is one filter for doing that. But it does mean the funding landscape skews toward artists who already have some access, which is exactly the group that needs it least urgently. If you're early in your career, it's worth specifically looking for opportunities that say so explicitly, rather than assuming general "artist grants" are open to you by default.
This is the same mechanic as the mission-fit point above, applied to career stage: a funder set up to support established professionals isn't being unfair by filtering for that, it's funding what it exists to fund. The strongest portfolio in the world won't win a grant that's structurally built for a different applicant. Knowing which grants are actually built for where you are right now saves you from reading a mismatch as a verdict on your work.
Dezi: the Dezi Art Prize was built for exactly the artists most grants turn away. No degree, gallery representation, sales history, or exhibition history required, current students and self-taught artists are explicitly encouraged, not just tolerated. And unlike most grants, every applicant, win or not, is offered a real post-close career-guidance conversation, so applying starts a relationship with Dezi rather than ending in silence if you don't win.
This is the kind of orientation most artists have to piece together themselves, one grant application, one confusing rejection, one older artist's offhand advice at a time. We'd rather just tell you directly, and show our own work while we're at it. If any of this raised your eyebrow about an open call you're considering, that instinct is worth trusting. And if you're looking for a place to apply that meets its own bar, Dezi Art Prize is open now.