Deadline: 30-Jun-23
The British Columbia Arts Council is providing Early Career Development Grants to support immersive and highly impactful opportunities, with measurable outcomes, for emerging and early career practitioners to:
- develop their artistic or administrative practice;
- participate in knowledge transfer, skill sharing, and reciprocal learning in the sector;
- expand their career experience, and professional networks and exposure; and
- build capacity in their identified community(ies), e.g., geographic, cultural, area of practice, etc.
Designated Priority Groups
- The BC Arts Council has committed to targeted investment in underserved and equity-deserving organizations and the development of equity support initiatives, including a policy to support designated priority groups. Support for designated priority groups includes funding prioritization, dedicated programs, outreach, and reporting.
- The BC Arts Council’s designated priority groups include applicants and arts and cultural practitioners who are:
- Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, or Inuit) Peoples;
- Deaf or experience disability;
- Black or people of colour; or
- Located in areas outside greater Vancouver or the capital region.
Components
- Assistance through this program is available to both arts and culture organizations and to individual art practitioners through four components:
- For Organizations
- Internship supports arts and culture organizations to host an early career practitioner in a paid internship.
- Cohort supports arts and culture organizations to host a group of early career practitioners in paid professional development positions.
- For Individuals
- Residency supports early career practitioners to pursue a learning-focused residency with an arts and culture organization.
- Mentorship supports early career practitioners to develop sustained one-on-one learning through a mentorship with an established practitioner working in their field, art form, or discipline.
- For Organizations
Funding Information
- Applicants may:
- request a grant of a maximum of $30,000.
- request funding for up to 100% of the project budget.
What Types of Projects Are Eligible?
- General eligibility considerations:
- projects must prioritize learning, knowledge transfer, and skill development, and include specific learning objectives with tangible outcomes, organizational needs are secondary;
- projects may include a mix of learning and creation; however, the creation and development of new work must not be the sole or primary objective;
- interdisciplinary knowledge transfer is eligible, however the program is not intended to provide basic training in order to pivot to a new field of practice;
- projects must take place over a minimum of eight weeks to a maximum of one year;
- projects may take place in B.C., elsewhere in Canada, or internationally;
- virtual projects are eligible if all other criteria are met;
- An eligible Internship project must:
- identify an eligible Early Career Practitioner who will be engaged as a paid employee in an immersive and structured experience. Part- and full-time placements are eligible.
- An eligible Cohort project must:
- provide paid professional development opportunities to a group of at least two eligible early career practitioners who must be identified in the application, and who will be working on the same activity in an immersive, cohesive, and structured experience; and
- engage all cohort members for the full duration of the project.
- Examples of eligible internships might include (but are not limited to):
- an emerging curator is engaged in a year-long internship at a public gallery under the mentorship of the Chief Curator, through which they are directly involved in the curation and mounting of a series of exhibits;
- an emerging writer interns for six months at a book publishing house where they are mentored by the editorial director on all aspects of developing and publishing a list of books;
- Examples of internships that are not eligible might include (but are not limited to):
- an emerging production manager is hired by a theatre company to produce a season of shows with no mentorship from staff.
- a community arts organization hires an emerging visual artist to mentor with their bookkeeper for one year.
Eligibility Criteria
- Organizations may submit one application per intake.
- To be eligible, an organization must:
- Be registered and in good standing as a non-profit society or community service co-op in B.C. for at least one fiscal year prior to application with:
- the majority of key staff (paid or volunteer) and board members based in B.C. with creative control and decision making for programming and engagement primarily maintained within the organization and by leadership based in B.C.; and
- a purpose/mandate primarily dedicated to arts and culture programming and activities; or
- a purpose/mandate to provide services to the arts and culture sector in B.C
- Be an Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) community organization or Indigenous government in B.C. that offers dedicated arts and culture activities.
- Be an arts and culture organization operated by a local government in B.C. for at least one fiscal year prior to application that:
- maintains an ongoing arm’s length, community-based board of management or advisory structure that sets policy for the organization’s programs and services;
- holds a dedicated programming space and has at least one dedicated staff person in an artistic, curatorial, or administrative leadership position who is responsible for programming and engagement;
- Be an arts and culture organization operated by a public post-secondary institution in B.C. for at least one fiscal year prior to application that:
- holds a dedicated programming space and has at least one dedicated staff person in an artistic, curatorial, or administrative leadership position who is responsible for programming and engagement;
- An eligible organization must also:
- provide public arts and cultural programming or service to the arts and culture sector in B.C., as a primary activity, and have done so for a minimum of one year prior to the application deadline;
- provide programs that benefit the community and not solely its members’ interests;
- engage skilled artistic, curatorial, and administrative leadership (volunteer or paid) for project or service delivery;
- To be eligible to participate in an Early Career Development project, an early career practitioner must:
- be working in one or more areas funded by the BC Arts Council, including but not only: Arts Administration; Production and Technical fields; Publishing; Community-Engaged Arts Practice; Creative Writing; Deaf, Disability and Mad Arts; Media Arts; Multi- and Interdisciplinary Arts; Museums or Indigenous Culture Centres; Performing Arts (music, theatre, dance, circus arts, comedy); Visual Arts (critic, curator, artist).
- be a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident who ordinarily resides in B.C., having lived in the province for at least 12 months immediately prior to the application being submitted.
- Be registered and in good standing as a non-profit society or community service co-op in B.C. for at least one fiscal year prior to application with:
- For Individuals
- To be eligible, an early career practitioner must:
- be a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident who ordinarily resides in B.C. and has lived in the province for at least 12 months immediately prior to submitting an application.
- not be enrolled in full-time studies when the project is taking place;
- not have been named in two previous successful Early Career Development applications regardless of component; in other words, an individual may participate in a maximum of two Early Career Development projects in their lifetime;
- not be named in any other application in this program’s current intake.
- Applicants are eligible if basic training will be complete within six months of the application deadline and before the proposed activity begins.
- “Basic training” means appropriate and relevant education that has prepared an Early Career Practitioner to work at a professional level. Some examples are:
- traditional knowledge transfer from an Elder, Knowledge Keeper, or established cultural practitioner;
- an apprenticeship with a qualified, peer-recognized practitioner;
- a degree or certificate program from an academic institution; or
- self-directed learning may be eligible.
- To be eligible, an early career practitioner must:
For more information, visit British Columbia Arts Council.