LTK Award and Arts-Based Community Development Grant Program (Canada)

Deadline: 14-May-25

Applications are now open for the Leon and Thea Koerner (LTK) Award Arts-Based Community Development Grant Program.

Grant Categories

The Arts-Based Community Development (A-BCD) program provides support in two categories:
- Category 1: New Work by Community Participants
  - Projects in this category must deliver a project that provides arts-based community development impacts and benefits to a specified community or communities.
  - Applications for New Work by Community Participants projects:
  - Have a professional artist (or artists) act as a facilitator to support the collective creation and presentation of new artwork by the community members.
  - Have participants actively collaborating in development of the ideas and making of the artwork.
  - Publicly present the artwork created by the community participants.
  - Clearly describe the A-BCD principles that will be used by the artist(s) and the community participants in developing the ideas and the artwork.
  - Demonstrate the advancement of community aspirations, transformation, and ownership of cultural projects.
  - Demonstrate effective community participation in the creative process, direction and management of the project.
- Category 2: Training for A-BCD Practitioners
  - Projects in this category must provide training or mentoring for artists or social service and community workers to understand and learn about how to create and safely implement or facilitate arts-based community development projects.
  - Training for A-BCD Practitioners projects:
    - Focus on training and skills development for artists or social-service and community workers to be able to create and conduct arts-based community development activities or projects.
    - Create opportunities for experienced arts-based community development practitioners to demonstrate ways of knowledge sharing, including training or mentoring artists or social service and community workers in safe and effective approaches to arts-based community development.
    - Enhances the capacity of artists to integrate A-BCD approaches into their practice and develop leadership skills to initiate collective art projects that support community transformation or social change.
    - Improves access to information about arts-based community development practice.
    - Improves skills and capacity among participants to contribute to future A-BCD projects, activities and discourse.
Leon and Thea Koerner Awards (LTK Award)
- Leon and Thea Koerner Awards (LTK Award) are grants provided by the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation through a partnership with the BC Arts Council. The LTK Award is given to up to 5 organizations that are recognized for achieving social benefit through excellence and innovation, creating projects that lead to social change or transformation. This aligns with the principles of arts-based community development.

Funding Information

Maximum request: $25,000; LTK Award Minimum Request: $25,000.

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. These identified groups will be the focus of BC Arts Council strategic measures, through dedicated programs, funding prioritization processes, partnerships, and outreach. 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
- Located in areas outside greater Vancouver or the capital region

Eligible Projects

To be eligible the project must:
- Embody arts-based community development principles and align with one of the categories above.
- Demonstrate confirmed professional artistic expertise
- Demonstrate confirmed community development expertise and be working with a specified community or communities.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible to apply to both programs, an organization must be:
- A professional arts organization or a community arts organization working in collaboration with a specified community. The 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.
- Or
  - An Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) community organization registered and in good standing as a non-profit society or community service co-op in B.C. for at least one fiscal year
- Or
  - An Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) government in B.C. that offers regular arts and culture activities.
- Or
  - Be a community organization whose focus is not arts and culture, working with a professional artist, in collaboration with a specified community. The 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.
An eligible organization must also:
- Provide public arts and culture or community programming 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 at-large and not solely the interests of its nonprofit society members.
- Engage competent artistic, curatorial, and administrative leadership (volunteer or paid) for project delivery.
- Fairly compensate artists, arts and cultural practitioners, technicians, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers. Compensation must align with project and community contexts and industry standards within the field of practice.
Organization Eligibility specific to The Leon and Thea Koerner Award
- organizations that wish to be considered for the LTK Award with this application, must also:
  - Be a registered charity or other qualified donee as defined by the Income Tax Act (Canada), including First Nations that are registered as such with the Canada Revenue Agency.
  - For Social Service Agencies: be working with a professional artist(s).
  - For all other organizations: be working in partnership with a confirmed social service agency with one person from the agency identified as the professional social service lead.

Ineligibility Criteria

The following organizations are not eligible to apply for this grant:

Private or for-profit entities
Member-funded societies
Educational institutions
Local governments
Industrial sites, archaeological sites, heritage sites or historic places

For more information, visit BC Arts Council.