Deadline: 16-Oct-2024
The Ontario Arts Council is offering grants to support the research, development and realization of community-engaged arts projects in Ontario.
Activities involve professional Ontario artists and community members working together to design, develop and realize collective creative experiences.
Community-engaged art practices are forms of collective artistic expression. In this field, individuals who aren’t professional artists actively participate in the artistic process, and the artistic process is considered as important as the final artistic product. Both the social and artistic outcomes of community-engaged art have value.
Categories
- The program has three categories:
- Planning: to help cover the costs of co-planning and co-designing community-engaged arts projects.
- Project: to help cover the costs of realizing community-engaged arts projects.
- Two-year project: This category is available to community-engaged arts collectives and organizations that have received two or more OAC project grants through community-engaged arts or arts education grant programs within the last five years. Activities must take place over the period of two years.
Priorities
- The program’s priorities are to support projects that:
- work with sectors beyond the arts, such as health, education, justice and the environment
- provide a sense of community, social connection, civic engagement and contribute to building a more just society
- reduce barriers to arts participation
- increase access to the arts for underserved or marginalized communities
- employ Ontario artists in Ontario communities
Funding Information
- Planning: maximum $7,500
- Project: maximum $12,500
- Two-year project: maximum $20,000
- Important: Up to $3,000 in additional funds are available in any category for mentorship costs of both mentees and mentors.
What this program funds?
- projects that actively include community participants in the creation and production of artistic works
- artists’ fees
- support specialist fees (including translators, Elders, therapists, etc.)
- honoraria for project participants
- snack and beverage expenses for participants
- travel expenses
- venue or studio rental
- purchase of small-scale equipment, software, electronics and similar materials required to carry out the project
What this program does not fund?
- events or activities that take place outside of Ontario
- tours
- professional productions for young audiences
- major capital expenditures, including buying, leasing or renovating buildings and purchase of major equipment
- fundraising activities
- projects that don’t include a confirmed non-arts community partner
- projects that don’t pay professional artists
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants
- professional artists, including co-applicants, who are Ontario residents
- ad hoc groups and collectives that have 50 per cent of its members residing in Ontario
- Ontario-based not-for-profit arts organizations and non-arts organizations
- school boards not partnered in OAC’s Artists in Residence (Education) program (for artist fees and travel expenses only)
- schools run by First Nations or Indigenous education authorities
- Important: Non-arts organizations, schools run by First Nations or Indigenous education authorities, and school boards must have an arts partner. Arts partners can be professional artists, arts collectives, ad hoc arts groups, or arts organizations.
- Ineligible applicants
- municipalities, colleges and universities
- amateur arts organizations such as, community theatre companies
- artists who are employed by a school involved on a full- or part-time basis during the course of the project
- school boards who are partnered with the Ontario Arts Council in the Artists in Residence (education) program
- current recipients of an operating grant in the Arts Organizations in Communities and Schools – Operating program
- organizations that receive an operating grant in other OAC programs, with the exception of organizations mandated to serve one or more of a OAC’s priority groups
- Important: Organizations applying as new applicants in the Arts Organizations in Communities and Schools: Operating program may apply only for projects taking place in their current fiscal year
- The following are not eligible to apply to the Two-Year Project category:
- organizations receiving OAC operating funding
- seasonal camps, festivals or events
- Note: If granted a two-year project, organizations cannot re-apply to this program until the final report is approved.
For more information, visit Ontario Arts Council.