Deadline: 23-Feb-23
The British Columbia Arts Council has launched the Project Assistance program for Community Arts Festivals to support the artistic development of local, community-based arts festivals by providing funding for fees paid to B.C. or Canadian professional artists and technicians, and Elders or Traditional Knowledge Keepers engaged in the festival.
The festival must be an existing festival, with an arts focus, presented by local Indigenous or community arts organizations, and may feature a combination of local and touring artists. A festival is an event that includes related arts and cultural activities and programming presented within a concentrated place and time, and must be longer than one day in duration.
Designated Priority Groups
- The designated priority groups consist of applicants who are:
- Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and/or Inuit) Peoples;
- Deaf or experience disability;
- Black or people of colour;
- Located in regional areas (outside greater Vancouver or the capital region).
- Organizations and collectives whose purposes include support for and who are led by arts and cultural practitioners rooted in communities as listed are considered a designated priority group.
Funding Information
- Maximum request amount is $6,000.
- The request amount to this program:
- Must be 50% or less of the total project budget; or
- May be up to 65% of the total project budget for projects from applicants that align with the BC Arts Council’s designated priority groups.
What Can Be Funded?
- Awards support:
- Fees for B.C. or Canadian professional artists and technicians (e.g., video/audio, lighting), and Elders or Traditional Knowledge Keepers as part of an eligible community arts festival.
- An eligible community arts festival must:
- Have a primary purpose focused on arts, and facilitate:
- The exchange of local ideas, narratives, or issues that engage community participation through an artistic lens
- Development of the arts at a community level
- A growing relationship between artists and the local community
- Be organized primarily by volunteers and may also have a dedicated coordinator.
- Be in B.C., be concentrated in place and time, and be longer than one day in duration.
- Have community involvement, including support of local government, volunteers, business, and arts and cultural organizations.
- Have appropriate planning related to healthy workplaces, including emergency preparedness.
- Have a primary purpose focused on arts, and facilitate:
What Will Not Be Funded?
Awards are not available to support:
- Arts and cultural organizations eligible within BC Arts Council professional programs.
- Operating costs.
- Project phases or activity that have begun prior to the program deadline.
- Project or budget deficits or contingency funds.
- Capital expenditures (construction, renovation, or purchase of property or equipment).
- Feasibility studies, start-up costs, or seed money.
- Performance series, cover bands, art and craft fairs, fundraising activities, conferences, conventions, symposia and concerts or projects that are secondary to the arts-related activity (e.g., competitions, or family, religious, or community celebrations or anniversaries).
- Subsistence to artists or cultural practitioners.
- Costs of producing commercial recordings or demo reels.
- Community choirs that are attached to or affiliated with educational, religious or military institutions;
- Community service non-profit organizations that do not have arts and culture as their primary purpose and the majority of their programming/activities are not arts-centred, even if they offer some arts programming or activities;
- Industrial/archaeological/heritage sites or historic places or organizations dedicated to archives.
- Private or for-profit entities.
- Member funded societies.
- Projects or activities funded through other BC Arts Council programs or its third-party delivery partners, including First Peoples’ Cultural Council, BC Touring Council, or Creative BC.
Eligibility Criteria
- To be eligible, an applicant must:
- Provide arts and cultural programming or service to the arts and culture sector in B.C. and have done so for a minimum of one year.
- 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, including adhering to international intellectual property rights standards and cultural ownership protocols.
- Adhere to the Criminal Record Review Act which requires that people who work with or may have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults must undergo a criminal record check by the Criminal Records Review Program.
- Have completed and submitted any overdue final reports on previous BC Arts Council grants by the submission deadline for this program.
- Provide programs that benefit the community and not solely its members’ interests
- Organizational applicants must also:
- Be a Community Arts 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 prior to application with:
- The majority of key members based in B.C.; and
- A dedicated arts and culture purpose/mandate; or
- A purpose/mandate to provide services to the arts and culture sector in B.C.
- For the purposes of eligibility for this program, Community Arts Organizations are non-profit:
- Community arts councils;
- Community driven, generally non-professional, volunteer-managed arts and culture organizations; and
- Community-based arts and cultural centres, whose primary purpose is community centered engagement and access to the arts.
- They offer a range of programming focused on enriching a specified community through a variety of arts disciplines and experiences, using a grassroots approach to providing wider service to the community beyond their membership.
- Be an Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) community organization or Indigenous government in B.C., offering dedicated arts and culture activities.
- Be a Community Arts 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 prior to application with:
- Organizations with a primary purpose to serve Deaf or disability arts practices may be eligible for the BC Arts Council’s Accessibility Programs:
- Application Assistance – pays for support services for creating and submitting grant applications.
- Access Support – additional funding that supports access costs associated with creating, developing, or executing a project funded by a BC Arts Council Arts Impact grant.
For more information, visit British Columbia Arts Council.