In 2003, 588 applicants sought cash from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities for various projects. Sometimes they got what they wanted.

NAME: Debórah Bond

GRANT APPLIED FOR: Young Emerging Artist Program; city offers up to $2,500 to artists between the ages of 18 and 30 as “support for innovative art projects.”

MONEY NEEDED FOR: recording a neo-soul album

BACKGROUND: Bond, now 29, is “a mild child raised by the 70’s soul spunk and the 80’s electronic funk!” according to her artistic statement. In her application, the New Haven, Conn., native described her voice as “the soft color of destiny yet to be told…dripping with the song of sound, gently wrapped around a town full with power.” Her influences included “a mixture of Maxwell, a sprinkle of Soulstice, a bit of Björk, and a finish of old familiar favorites such as Chaka Kahn and Roberta Flack.”

PLAN: All of the grant money would go toward paying for 30 hours of time at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, where she would record six tracks. These new tracks would accompany the three from her demo CD, which Bond created with funding from a small-projects grant from the city.

AMOUNT ASKED FOR: $2,500

STATUS: approved

UPSHOT: Bond and her band Third Logic completed the album DayAfter in 2003 and have sold about 10,000 copies, she says. She has since moved to Wheaton, Md., which makes her ineligible for another DCCAH grant and disrupts her usual funding strategy. “I haven’t found anything as straightforward and in your face as [DCCAH] in Maryland,” she says. “But I’ve got a band member [who lives in D.C.] trying to apply.”

—Rachel Beckman