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Project Grants for Organizations in the 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.

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Program Description

This program provides grants to Canadian non-profit organizations and collectives that have a mandate in the contemporary visual arts or in fine craft. Grants provide a financial contribution toward projects that advance knowledge and promote public enjoyment of the contemporary visual arts.

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Eligibility

Eligible Applicants

To apply to this program, your organization must be one of the following types:

  • Incorporated, non-profit Canadian visual arts or fine craft organization, museum, public art gallery, exhibition centre, artist-run centre, university art department, art college, fine craft college, service organization or professional association, with a primary mandate in the visual arts.
  • Professional artists’ collective or curatorial collective (for the definition of an eligible collective, see the Frequently Asked Questions About This Program section of these guidelines). Note that collectives must submit their application in the name of their collective or project, which must be able to receive a grant payable to that name.

This Canada Council program is accessible to Aboriginal arts organizations and arts organizations of diverse cultural and regional communities of Canada.

Note that meeting the eligibility criteria allows your organization or collective to apply to the program. This does not, however, guarantee that it will receive a grant.

Ineligible Applicants

Art museums, public galleries and artist-run centres that receive operating funding from the Canada Council are not eligible to apply to this program.

Eligible Projects

These are the categories of eligible projects:

  • Exhibitions and related public presentations. Grants may be used for curatorial research, installation, presentation, circulation, borrowing and audience development activities connected with the exhibition.
  • Colloquiums, lecture series and other public forums for the exchange and dissemination of ideas in the contemporary visual arts.
  • Publication projects (print or electronic) in the contemporary visual arts, including artists’ books, exhibition catalogues, monographs and anthologies. Publications must be intended for national and (or) international distribution.

Note that projects involving professional visual artists and non-arts community members working together in creative and collaborative relationships may be eligible for support through the Visual Arts Section’s Artists and Community Collaboration Program.

Ineligible Projects

The following projects are not eligible for support under the program:

  • Colloquiums, lecture series and publications dealing exclusively with fine craft. Requests for contributions toward such projects (other than for exhibitions and exhibition catalogues) should be submitted to the Jean A. Chalmers Fund for the Crafts (see www.canadacouncil.ca/visualarts).
  • Projects organized by students, as well as exhibitions presenting student works, or works produced in a training or academic context.
  • Exhibitions where the participating artists have not been selected or confirmed. (However, projects involving a period of curatorial research are eligible.)
  • Basic training workshops, art education courses and artists’ residencies.
  • Commercial projects.
  • Projects dealing with historical material (unless their relevance to contemporary art practices is clearly shown).

Other Restrictions

  • Artists, including artists from outside Canada, whose works are presented or who take part in projects must meet the Canada Council’s definition of a professional artist, which is in the Frequently Asked Questions About This Program section.
  • All projects that the Canada Council supports through the Visual Arts Section must pay professional fees to participating artists. Fees include payment for exhibition rights, public presentation rights and reproduction rights for the use of works. These fees must meet or exceed the current national standard.
  • All final reports due for previous Canada Council grants must be submitted before the application deadline for this grant program. If your organization has not submitted all final reports that are due, your application will not be eligible.
  • Requests that have been unsuccessful in a competition of this program may be resubmitted to only one other competition of the program.
  • An applicant may submit a maximum of four requests to each competition.
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Grant Amount

Grants awarded through this program will be a maximum of 50 percent of the total cost of the proposed project. If you are successful, you may receive less than the full amount that you request.

Note that recent grants for project assistance have rarely exceeded $15,000 per grant.

Retroactive funding is not available. In other words, you cannot use grant funds to cover any expenses that occur before the application deadline.

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Assessment of Applications

Assessment Process

The Canada Council for the Arts makes its funding decisions through a peer assessment process. Applications will be assessed by a committee composed of individuals who are recognized as experienced professionals by their peers and who are chosen for their specialized knowledge in advancing the contemporary visual arts.
Committee members are selected to reflect a broad range of professional experience and thought, and to ensure fair representation of gender, generations, the regional and cultural diversity of Canada, Aboriginal peoples and Canada’s two official languages. (For more information, see the Frequently Asked Questions About This Program section.)

Assessment Criteria

The committee’s decisions are based on the availability of funds and the general merit of the project compared with all other eligible applications, as measured against the following assessment criteria. The relative weight given to each of these criteria is indicated in brackets:

  • The project’s contribution to the advancement of knowledge of the contemporary visual arts (25 percent).
  • The project’s contribution to the Canadian public’s understanding and appreciation of the contemporary visual arts (25 percent).
  • The artistic merit of the project. This includes the merit of the professionals, of the artistic work of participating artists and of the artworks to be presented (30 percent).
  • The administrative merit of the project. This includes your organization’s ability to complete the project successfully, its commitment to paying appropriate artists’ fees to participating artists, and the appropriateness of the budget (20 percent).

The committee will also consider a project’s potential impact on promoting the current strategic priorities of the Canada Council for the Arts, including cultural diversity and Aboriginal art.

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Application Form

Project Grants to Organizations in the Visual Arts (In pdf. format)
This form can only be printed and cannot be filled out online.

Or

To submit your grant application form on the Internet go to

GO! Grants Online Top of Page

Further Information

Geneviève Landreville (for 15 April deadline)   or 
Melinda Mollineaux (for 15 September deadline)
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. 5109 (for Geneviève Landreville) or 4122 (for Melinda Mollineaux)

TTY: 1-866-585-5559

Fax: 613-566-4332

February 2010