Arts-Based Community Development & Leon and Thea Koerner Award – Canada

Deadline: 17-May-23

Applications are now open for the Arts-Based Community Development Program & Leon and Thea Koerner Award.

Established in 1955, The Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation has provided over ten million dollars in grants to arts and social service organizations throughout B.C. and the Yukon. In 2015, the Foundation transitioned from sixty years of continuous grant making to an endowment that supports the Leon and Thea Koerner Award (LTK Award), now administered through the BC Arts Council.

Project Assistance: Arts-Based Community Development

• The Project Assistance: Arts-Based Community Development program supports organizations to engage professional artists in the development and delivery of projects that provide arts-based community development impacts and benefits to a specified community. Through collaborative, community-based, arts-centred activities, these projects provide a tangible and active understanding of arts and culture as a path to health, well-being, human dignity, and social transformation.

Leon and Thea Koerner Award

• The LTK Award sustains a legacy through annual awards to registered charities and other qualified donees in B.C. that are creating social benefit using professional arts-based activity in collaboration with community and social service agencies.
• The LTK Award is aimed at achieving social benefit and recognizing excellence and innovation, leading to social change or transformation; this aligns with the principles of arts-based community development.
• The objectives of the Leon and Thea Koerner Award are to:
  • create social benefit through professional arts-based activity
  • achieve significant individual or community impact
  • create ongoing, perpetual benefits to BC communities
  • support innovation, excellence and social transformation
  • continue the legacy of Leon and Thea Koerner as philanthropists in BC
  • honour the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation’s sixty years of continuous grant making in the areas of arts and social services in BC

Funding Information

• A-BCD grant request amounts:
  • Must be 50% or less of the total eligible project budget; or
  • May be up to 65% of the total eligible project budget for projects from organizations that align with the BC Arts Council’s designated priority groups
• There is no maximum request amount, but A-BCD grants typically range from $15,000 to $30,000. Requests for larger grants will need to articulate a clear rationale for why the project requires a higher amount.
• LTK Awards: up to five LTK Awards at a minimum of $25,000 each will be available in this intake. Only one application per organization is accepted. Grants may be awarded for less than requested.

Priority Groups

• These groups have been identified in order to achieve strategic direction commitments and correct funding gaps illuminated through recent evaluations and consultations. 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 above are considered a designated priority group.

What Types of Projects are Eligible

• Awards are available to support a specific project which directly uses, or provides skills development for and knowledge transfer to A-BCD Practitioners about, the following arts-based community development (A-BCD) principles:
  • A-BCD is a respectful, collaborative process through which professional artists work as a catalyst to engage a specified community in the creation of artwork in various disciplines.
  • Community members are involved at every level, including in the development of the creative ideas and in the creation and presentation of the artwork, with all participants as equal contributors.
  • The strength and impact of the A-BCD processes are as important as the project outcome.
  • Art is an effective mechanism for social transformation and can create deeper connections than other more polarizing avenues of social change.
  • Participating in collective creation is a powerful act of civic involvement.
• This program provides support in two categories:
  • New Work, which:
    • Supports one-time projects that create new artistic work through collaborative, community based arts and cultural activity where professional artist(s) work with a specified community.
    • Recognizes the long-term commitment required of community-engaged practice by allowing projects with a phased approach over a maximum of three years.
    • New Work projects must be presented publicly.
  • Skills Development and Knowledge Transfer for A-BCD Practitioners, which:
    • Supports projects where the primary focus is training and skills development for artists to be able to initiate and conduct arts-based community development activities.
    • Creates opportunities for experienced arts-based community development practitioners to demonstrate new ways of knowledge sharing, including training or mentoring artists and social service practitioners in safe and effective approaches to arts-based community development.
    • Enhances the capacity of artists to provide leadership by offering them an opportunity to develop their practice as a means of community transformation or social change.
    • May or may not be presented publicly, as applicable to the project.
• To be eligible the project must:
  • Use arts-based community development principles and align with one of the categories.
  • Demonstrate confirmed professional artistic expertise. Professional artists may work in any discipline, traditional or contemporary, and must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents residing in B.C. for at least one year prior to the application.
  • Demonstrate confirmed community development expertise and be working with a specified community.
• Examples of Eligible Activities: New Work Category
  • A social service organization working with a composer and a musician to support a specified group of parents to compose and perform original lullabies.
  • An Indigenous Government or community organization working with artists, Elders and community members to revitalize artistic and cultural traditions through the creation of new artworks to be presented to the community.
  • A theatre organization, with the support of social service practitioners, working with people who are incarcerated to create and present a new collaborative theatre piece together.
  • A community arts organization working with a visual artist and young people creating artwork for an exhibition, based on the participant’s ideas and experiences, which explores themes of inclusion and anti-bullying.
  • A community support organization working with writers and editors to support elderly adults in care to write, edit, compile and present stories from their lives, based on themes proposed by the participants.
• Examples of Eligible Activities: Skills Development and Knowledge Transfer for A-BCD Practitioners Category
  • Workshops or training delivered by skilled A-BCD practitioners for professional artists and/or social service practitioners that teaches A-BCD skills and tactics in community collaborative creation.
  • Workshops or training from experienced social service practitioners working with experienced A-BCD practitioner(s) to train professional artist(s), Elders, or a Traditional Knowledge Keepers in creating safe (i.e. cultural, emotional) and accessible spaces in A-BCD projects.
  • A skilled A-BCD practitioner working with youth on a collaborative arts project about their experiences as youth, while mentoring and providing real-time learning for a cohort of emerging A-BCD practitioners on how to facilitate the collaborative creative process.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible to apply for both programs, an applicant must:

• Be a professional or 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 prior to application with:
  • The majority of key staff (paid or volunteer) and board 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.
• Be a community organization whose focus is not arts and culture, 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 prior to application with:
    • The majority of key staff and members based in B.C.
• Be an Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) community organization or Indigenous government in B.C. that offers dedicated arts and culture activities, and working in collaboration with a specified community.
• Provide public arts and cultural or community programming in B.C. and have done so for a minimum of one year.
• Engage competent artistic, curatorial, administrative or project leadership (volunteer or paid).
• Fairly compensate artists, arts and cultural practitioners, technicians, Elders, and/or 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 Records 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.
• Leon and Thea Koerner Award
  • In addition, to be eligible for the LTK Award the:
    • Applicant 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.
    • Project must use professional arts-based activity in collaboration with a confirmed socialservice agency.

Ineligible

Awards are not available to support:

• Operating costs.
• Project or budget deficits and/or contingency funds.
• Repeat activities (exception: projects which have previously indicated a phased approach).
• Capital expenses (construction, renovation, or purchase of property or equipment).
• Feasibility studies, start-up costs, or seed money.
• Fundraising activities, conferences, conventions, or projects where arts are secondary to other activities (e.g. competitions, or family, religious, or community celebrations or anniversaries).
• Projects which do not use arts-based community development processes (e.g. general artistic skill development workshops, or artistic work that is not created in collaboration with the community participants).
• Subsistence to artists or cultural practitioners.
• Costs of producing commercial recordings or demo reels.
• Private or for-profit entities.
• Member funded societies.
• Industrial/archaeological/heritage sites or historic places or organizations dedicated to archives.
• Projects or activities funded through other BC Arts Council programs including BC Arts Council funds delivered through third-party delivery partners: First Peoples’ Cultural Council, BC Touring Council, or Creative BC.

For more information, visit British Columbia Arts Council.