Artists and Community Collaboration Program for Visual Arts
Deadlines
15 April or 15 September
If either of these dates falls on a weekend or statutory holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. Your completed application and all required support material must be postmarked on or before the deadline date.
Program Description
This program awards project assistance grants to Canadian, non-profit organizations and collectives with a mandate in the contemporary visual arts. Grants provide a contribution toward projects that bring together professional artists and the broader community for the purpose of giving the visual arts a stronger presence in everyday life.
Artists and community collaboration is an arts process that actively involves the work of professional artists and non-arts community members in creative and collaborative relationships.
Eligibility
Eligible Applicants
This program is not open to individual artists. Applicants must be one of the following types:
- Incorporated, non-profit Canadian arts organizations with a primary mandate in the visual arts. Included are fine craft organizations, museums, public art galleries, exhibition centres, artist-run centres, university art departments, art colleges, fine craft colleges, service organizations and professional associations.
- Professional artists’ collectives or curatorial collectives. Note that collectives must submit their application in the name of their collective or project, and must be able to receive a grant payable to that name.
All programs of the Canada Council for the Arts are accessible to Aboriginal arts organizations and arts organizations of diverse cultural and regional communities of Canada.
Eligible Projects
Grants contribute to the direct costs of the collaborative production of artworks or similar activities whereby members of the non-arts community are given direct access to artists’ working processes.
All projects supported by the Visual Arts Section of the Canada Council must pay professional fees to participating artists, including exhibition rights, public presentation rights and reproduction rights for the use of works. These fees must be the same as, or higher than, the national standard.
Ineligible Projects
The following types of projects are not eligible for funding from this program:
- capital projects (such as the renovation of a building)
- collaborative projects involving only professional artists
- fundraising events
- programs that are part of a grade school, college or university program, and
- activities that appear in any other current grant request to the Canada Council.
Other Restrictions
- Artists who participate in projects, including artists from outside Canada, must meet the Canada Council’s definition of a professional artist.
- Applicants that have not submitted all final reports and/or financial accounting from previous Canada Council grants are not eligible to apply.
- If an applicant has submitted a grant request to this program already, and the request was unsuccessful, the same request may be resubmitted to only one further competition of this program.
- The Canada Council will accept only one request from an applicant for each competition.
Grant Amount
Grants awarded through this program will be a maximum of 50 percent of the total cost of a project. Successful applicants may receive less than the amount that they request.
Note that recent grants for project assistance have rarely been greater than $15,000.
Retroactive funding is not available. Grant funds may be used only for project expenses that occur after the competition deadline.
Assessment of Applications
Assessment Process
The Canada Council for the Arts makes its funding decisions through the peer assessment process. Requests for project assistance grants are assessed by a committee composed of experienced professionals, chosen for their specialized knowledge of the contemporary visual arts. Committee members are selected to provide a broad range of professional experience and thought, and to ensure fair representation of gender, generations, regional and cultural diversity, Aboriginal peoples and Canada’s two official languages.
For this program, the decisions made by the peer assessment committee are final recommendations that are reviewed and approved by the Canada Council.
Assessment Criteria
The committee’s decisions are based on the availability of funds and the general merit of the project in comparison with those of all other eligible applicants. The committee measures each application against the following assessment criteria:
- The merit of the proposed collaboration process (where clear and appropriate strategies and processes must be outlined to ensure a successful collaborative relationship).
- The relevance of the project for participating community members and for the artists involved, in particular the relevance for youth, Aboriginal communities and culturally diverse communities.
- The artistic merit of the visual arts organization or artists involved and their proven ability to carry out such a project, as demonstrated by their resources, expertise and past performance.
- The public impact of the project.
- The administrative merit including the applicant’s commitment to paying appropriate artists’ fees to participating artists and the appropriateness of the budget.
Application form and guidelines
Artists and Community Collaboration Program for Visual Arts (Acrobat Adobe format that can be printed only)
OR
To apply for a grant online go to GO! Grants Online
Further Information
Pao Quang Yeh
Visual Arts Section
Canada Council for the Arts
350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047
Ottawa ON K1P 5V8
Telephone: 1-800-263-5588 (toll-free) or 613-566-4414, ext. 5094
TTY (TDD) machine, for hearing-impaired callers: 613-565-5194
Fax: 613-566-4332
March 2007