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Allocation of new Canada Council funds

Background

In the 2006 federal budget, the Canada Council for the Arts received a total of $50 million in additional one-time funding: $20 million for  2006-07 and $30 million for 2007-08.

This is the fifth time since the cutbacks of the mid-1990s that the Canada Council has received an increase in its Parliamentary appropriation. To obtain each increase, the Council had extensive discussions with the government and the Department of Canadian Heritage about needs and priorities for new funding. 

• The 1997-98 increase of $25 million per year was used primarily to provide direct access to Canada Council programs for new organizations, including emerging, small and mid-size organizations, and to increase funding for touring and other dissemination activities. Between 1996-97 and 2005-2006, the number of organizations receiving operating funding from the Canada Council increased from 613 to 937.

• In 1998, the Council also received a special allocation of $10 million over three years to create the Millennium Arts Fund, which funded special projects by both individual artists and arts organizations.

• In 2000, the Council’s parliamentary appropriation was increased by $10 million. This funding was primarily used to support the work of emerging artists and programming aimed at young audiences.

• In 2001, the Council received an additional $25 million per year under the Tomorrow Starts Today government initiative. This funding was used to increase support to individual artists and consolidate arts organizations across all disciplines. It also provided increased funding for Aboriginal and culturally-diverse arts organizations.

The 2006 funding increase 

When the Council’s Parliamentary appropriation was again increased in the 2006 federal budget, the Council cited three specific priorities in determining how the funds would be allocated:

• Enhancing the work of Canada’s highest-achieving arts organizations – that is, organizations which receive Canada Council operating funding –

      in all regions of the country.

• Providing increased support to individual artists across Canada in all artistic disciplines; and

• Increasing support for activities aimed at increasing public access to the arts, including dissemination and touring.

Guided by these priorities, the Council allocated the funds as follows:

• Individual Artists

• • $8.5 million  to increase the Council’s 2006-07 and 2007-08 budgets for grants to individual artists;

• Public Access to the Arts

• • $8.5 million to increase the Council’s 2006-07 and 2007-08 budgets for activities aimed at increasing public access to the arts.

• Supplementary Operating Funds Initiative

• • $33 million to award one-time-only supplementary grants, on a competitive basis, to arts organizations currently receiving operating funding. 

In addition to the new money, the Council permanently increased funding for project grants by $1.5 million annually, beginning in 2006-2007.

Individual artists and public access

Allocation of funds

In 2006-2007, the Council allocated approximately $7 million (of the $17 million set aside for these priorities) to fund more than 250 individual artists and more than 450 initiatives aimed at increasing public access to the arts, including tours, exhibitions, literary readings and dissemination projects.  Part of this money was awarded to artists and organizations who had been highly recommended by peer assessment committees, but who had not received grants due to lack of funds. A portion of these funds were also used to “top up” grants from successful applicants whose requests could only be partially funded.

In 2007-2008, the balance of $10 million will be used to increase the program budgets for individual artists and public access initiatives in all disciplines.

Supplementary Operating Funds Initiative

Allocation of funds

A total of 858 arts organizations (of the 937 that were eligible) applied for funding through the Supplementary Operating Funds Initiative. Since the requests made in the applications totaled $95.6 million – nearly three times the $33 million that was available for supplementary funding – not every organization could receive funding, and even most of those which were successful did not receive the total amount requested in their applications.

In developing the Supplementary Operating Funds initiative, the Canada Council decided to identify - for the purposes of this competition only - “key institutions” - defined as those having a significant institutional impact beyond the communities or provinces where they are located. In general, these organizations have the largest budgets within their disciplines. They also have the strongest presence within and outside the arts community and generate significant levels of employment for artists and arts professionals.

This strategic decision acknowledged that over the past 10 years, the average operating grant from the Canada Council to small and medium-sized organizations increased by 13.5 per cent, while the average operating grant to larger institutions decreased by 0.7 per cent. With increased resources, it is expected that these organizations would gain an increased capacity to provide strong leadership in their milieu and achieve even greater impact regionally, nationally and internationally.

To support these key institutions, the Council allocated $20 million -- 60 per cent of the $33 million available for this initiative – to be distributed to these organizations. After analysis and discussion, the Council designated 67 organizations as “key institutions”.

The assessment process

All applications for supplementary funding were assessed on a competitive basis by peer assessment committees composed of peers from the same artistic discipline as the applicant. As usual, committees were asked to rank the applications based on merit against the published criteria for the program, and to recommend a range of minimum and maximum amounts.    

Applications from the 67 “key institutions” were also assessed by a multidisciplinary committee composed of both Canadian and international peers. 

The Council felt this further level of assessment was appropriate given the scope and responsibilities of these organizations; it also provided a multidisciplinary perspective on their institutional impact at a regional, national and, where applicable, international level.

The multidisciplinary committee could not change the disciplinary committee recommendation but it could recommend supplementing that recommendation with a further increase from funds set aside for the highest-achieving key institutions. Of the $20M available for key institutions, the disciplinary juries recommended $18M, leaving $2M for the mulitidisciplinary jury to recommend.

Overall, 61 peers from all disciplines and all regions and from abroad, participated in the process. All recommendations, respecting the peers’ assessments, were brought to and approved by the Board at its March meeting.

Conclusion

The $50 million that was added to the Canada Council’s Parliamentary appropriation over the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 fiscal years has provided the Council with an important opportunity to make strategic investments in individual artists, public access initiatives and the future of Canada’s highest-achieving arts organizations.

The largest component of this allocation, the Supplementary Operating Funds Initiative is unique in the Canada Council’s history in that:

• It is the first initiative that consistently applied the same priorities, application form and guidelines across all artistic disciplines.
• It is the first time that such a large amount of money -- $33 million – has been allocated in one process to such a large number of organizations.
• It introduced a new approach to the evaluation of applications from organizations of differing size and scope, with the largest organizations assessed by both a disciplinary and multidisciplinary peer committee; and
• For the first time, it required applicants to provide information on how organizations will measure and/or document the results and the impact of the proposed activities on the public as well as the organization’s artistic, audience development or administrative capacity.

It should be remembered that this is a one-time initiative; the supplementary grants will not be integrated into the base operating support organizations receive from the Canada Council, and the assessments of applications under this program will have no impact on future operating support. Nor will it have an impact on organizations’ applications for any other Canada Council program, or on how money will be allocated if additional new funding is secured in the future.

Although the Canada Council could not fund all applicants, the overwhelming response to the Supplementary Operating Funds Initiative clearly demonstrates the creativity and dynamism of Canada’s arts organizations in all parts of the country.  It supports the arguments the Council and the arts community have made over many years for additional investment in the arts, and will be very helpful in documenting requests for increased funding in the future.

Throughout the Canada Council’s 50-year history, the Council has had to make strategic choices in the face of limited resources, and the allocation of the additional $50 million was no exception. 

In order to determine future strategies and directions, the Council will soon embark on a strategic planning process which will involve consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, including the arts community. More information on this process will be available later this spring.

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Additional information on the new funds for operating organizations, individual artists and public access is now available.