Deadline: 02-Mar-22
Communications and Artists Shifting Culture (CASC) grants are now open.
CASC grants provide opportunities for artists2, cultural workers, and communities of Vancouver and the xmθkym (Musqueam), Swx_wú7mesh (Squamish) and slilwta (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations to contribute and participate in the arts and culture sector.
Program Goals
This program aims to leverage the collective community efforts of Vancouver’s arts and culture sector to:
- Centre the voices of underrepresented, marginalized, and racialized artists, cultural practitioners, and organizations to research, develop, create and present their work.
- Provide meaningful opportunities where artists and cultural workers have the freedom, agency, and safe spaces to share their stories.
- Support co-creative projects between communities and artists or cultural workers that build and strengthen connections across and between diverse communities.
- Expand public access to culturally relevant and diverse work, programs and services to broaden understanding of Vancouver’s cultural history and creative stories.
- Amplify cultural life throughout Vancouver neighborhoods, communities and public spaces.
- Create a more equitable, collaborative, vibrant and sustainable arts and culture sector.
Funding Information
CASC grant awards range from $2,500 to $20,000. The City aims to join other funders and sponsors in the contribution and success of a project. Through this grant program, the total combined cash contributions from all City sources, including this grant request and Park Board contributions, are as follows:
- Projects with cash budgets over $10,000 (not including in-kind goods and services) can request up to 50% of the cash budget, to a maximum of $20,000.
- Smaller projects with cash budgets up to $10,000 (not including in-kind goods and services) can request up to 75% of the cash budget.
Eligibility Criteria
To apply to this program, the applicant must:
- Be a non-profit society, a community service co-op legally registered and in good standing with BC Registries and Services, a First Nations Band Council on whose unceded traditional homelands Vancouver sits, or a registered charity with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
OR
NEW: Groups and individuals from equity-denied communities that are not incorporated as registered non-profits, co-ops, or charities may submit an application via a sponsor organization that is a registered non-profit society, co-op, charity or First Nations Band council. The sponsor organization must have a mandate to serve the same equity denied community (is) as the group or individual.
- First-time applicants must provide documentation of non-profit, registered or charitable status, e.g., Certificate of Incorporation
NEW: Organizations that are currently receiving City of Vancouver Cultural Operating funding (COFA or COFI) are not eligible to apply unless they are a sponsor organization of an individual artist or non-registered collective and fulfill the mandate criteria noted above.
- Have an active presence in and deliver programs and services within Vancouver, or if led by either the xmθkym (Musqueam), Swx_wú7mesh (Squamish) and slilwta (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, held in their traditional homelands.
- Be working with artists and creative collaborators and have leadership with the relevant lived experience, permission, knowledge, skills, and expertise to lead and contribute to the work.
- Aim to compensate artists, cultural practitioners, and project contributors at standard industry rates.
- Provide respectful and safe working conditions for artists, staff, volunteers and contractors.
- Have accessibility and inclusion policies and practices in place.
- Have a mix of revenue sources (earned, private and public) for the project.
- Provide financial statements signed by the Board for the most recently completed fiscal year, including a Balance Sheet and Income/Expense Statement.
- Have a Governance model that is supportive of the mission, a healthy and inclusive work place, and the staff and people served.
- Comply with all applicable laws, governing acts, regulations, bylaws and guidelines, including obtaining any necessary licenses, permits or approvals required for the project.
- Have completed all previous projects funded through Cultural Services and can report on the most recent City-funded project in the current application
OR
Can provide an interim report if the previous project is not complete by the application deadline. If funding for a new project is approved, release of funds will be conditional upon receipt of an interim report.
Eligible Projects & Activities
CASC grants support projects:
- In any artistic discipline (e.g., Indigenous arts and culture, community-engaged arts, dance, literary, media, music, theatre, visual arts, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, cultural heritage)
- In any phase of a project, from research and development through to presentation In all forms (e.g., exhibitions, performances, publications, presentations, video, film, media, radio, audio recordings, virtual, online-based creative initiatives, or community engaged art or cultural projects led by professional artists, cultural workers, Elders, knowledge-keepers)
Prioritizing Equity-denied Artists and Organizations
- Equity-denied individuals and groups are those that identify barriers to equal access, opportunities, and resources due to disadvantage and discrimination and actively seek social justice and reparation. They include but are not limited to:
- people who identify as Indigenous; Black people and people of African descent; people of color and racialized people; people with disabilities/disabled people, and people who live with mental health barriers; Deaf/deaf and Hard of Hearing people;
- LGBTQ2+ and gender diverse people; low-income people; refugees, newcomers, and undocumented people; minority language communities; women and girls; and, youth and seniors.
These groups will be prioritized in the assessment process. They recognize and acknowledge the compounding effects of different systems of marginalization and strive to apply an intersectionality lens.
For more information, visit Cultural Grants Program.
For more information, visit https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/cultural-grants-program.aspx#casc