Guidelines: Individual Artist Program
Phase 1 Request for Proposals – Deadline: August 6, 2019, 4:30pm MST; Opens July 1
Phase 2 Application – Deadline: October 22, 2019, 4:30pm MST; Opens September 24 *UPDATED*
Download the Full Program Guidelines as a PDF
If you require any accommodations that would allow you to fairly access this process, please contact 403.476.2031 or email grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.
For more details see the Accommodation and Accessibly section below. If you have questions or concerns, see the Investment Program FAQs and Application Checklist.
Program Overview
The intention of this program is to support the artist’s overall practice rather than focusing investment on distinct project outcomes or artistic outputs. We believe that removing financial barriers for artists to dedicate time, resources, and energy on their daily artistic practice creates the conditions necessary for the artist to create meaningful artistic work, experiences, and relationships within the city of Calgary.
Apply for $30,000 to support almost any aspect of your overall artistic practice between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020. The total funding available is $300,000.
Who Can Apply: This program is open to individual artists in the city of Calgary, Mohkinstsis, working in any artistic discipline at any stage of practice.
Artists funded through this program will have a clear and thoughtful relationship with their artistic practice and the communities for whom and with they make and share their work, a curious and critical awareness of their role as an artist within the city of Calgary, and demonstrate readiness to consider how their practice may transform and grow as a result of an investment in their overall work.
Selection Process:
- Criteria: Artistic Impact, Public Impact, Innovation/Learning, Planning
- Phase 1: Request for Proposals will be assessed by a peer assessment committee.
- Successful applicants will be invited to complete the full application in Phase 2.
- Phase 2 will be assessed by a peer assessment committee who will make final funding recommendations.
Notification of Results, Phase 1 Request for Proposal: Late September 2019
Notification of Results, Phase 2 Application: Late November 2019
Accommodation and Accessibility
The Calgary Arts Development Community Investment team is available at any time to answer questions and to offer support and feedback at any time during the application process.
Staff can answer specific questions and/or provide feedback up to two business days before the application deadlines. Please contact the team as early as possible to ensure they can provide the best support possible.
Calgary Arts Development is committed to open, fair and transparent processes. We will work with applicants who experience barriers to access our granting programs to develop accommodations that suit their abilities, including but not limited to:
- Translation
- Braille transcription
- Physical access to meeting spaces
Please contact 403.476.2031 or email grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.
Program Information
We believe that investing in individual artists’ practices is fundamental to ensuring the city of Calgary, Mohkinstsis, is home to a vibrant arts community and for Calgarians to have access to meaningful artistic experiences.
The intention of this program is to support the artist’s overall practice rather than focusing investment on distinct project outcomes or artistic outputs. We believe that removing financial barriers for artists to dedicate time, resources, and energy on their daily artistic practice creates the conditions necessary for the artist to create meaningful artistic work, experiences, and relationships within the city of Calgary.
Artists funded through this program will have a clear and thoughtful relationship with their artistic practice and the communities for whom and with they make and share their work, a curious and critical awareness of their role as an artist within the city of Calgary, and demonstrate readiness to consider how their practice may transform and grow as a result of an investment in their overall work.
Funds from this program may be used at the artist’s discretion. Please see the Ineligible Expenses section for further detail.
Artists may apply for a set grant of $30,000. The total pool of funding for this program is $300,000.
The investment period for the Individual Artist Program is January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
Who can Apply?
This program is open to individual artists (1) in the city of Calgary, Mohkinstsis (2), working in any artistic discipline at any stage of practice.
We welcome applications from those working in all artistic disciplines and their various cultural forms, including: Indigenous arts; circus arts; craft arts; community and or social practice; curation; dance; deaf and disability arts; digital arts; literature; film and media arts; multidisciplinary practice; music and sound; performance; theatre; and visual arts.
Artists who undertake work as part of an artist collective, partnership, group, or organization are eligible to apply to this program, however the application must be directly centred around how the individual understands their own artistic practice and goals within the context of collaborative process.
(1) This program is not intended to support amateur artists or arts administrators.
(2) Applicants living outside of Calgary may apply if they can demonstrate a commitment to maintaining a majority of activities that contribute to the Calgary arts community and are accessible to Calgarians.
Program Criteria
This program will be assessed on the below criteria in two phases, a Request for Proposal and a full application, by a peer assessment panel of community members and artistic peers. A detailed description of the application phases can be found in the Application Checklist below.
Artistic Impact: The thoughtfulness, quality, and intention of the artist’s work and practice, and the relationships the artist undertakes with their artistic community or related communities through their work.
Public Impact: How clearly the artist has identified and understands their public, and how meaningfully, intentionally, and thoughtfully the artist engages with communities with whom they make, share, and develop their work.
Innovation/Learning: The criticality and authenticity with which the artist considers how they create, share, reflect upon and understand their work and their practice, and the potential for their practice to productively develop and/or transform.
Planning (Phase 2 Criteria only): How effective, researched, thoughtful, and feasible the artist’s goals for the year 2020 are.
Selection Process
Applications will be assessed by an independent, arm’s-length assessment committee made up of artistic peers and community members.
Community members are Calgarians with an appreciation for the arts (any discipline) who actively attend arts performances and presentations. Artistic peers are artists and arts workers who possess professional experience and knowledge directly relevant to the arts sector. Peer assessment committees are selected from a pool of public nominations and staff-identified individuals to ensure a broad diversity of perspective and experience across artistic disciplines and communities.
Phase 1: Request for Proposal
- Applications will be assessed on the criteria of Artistic Impact, Public Impact, and Innovation/Learning using a 1 – 10 scale for each criteria.
- A pool of 30 ~ 40 top-scoring applicants will be invited to complete Phase 2: Application. Applicants will be notified of Phase 1 results no later than September 24, 2019.
Phase 2: Application
- Applications will be assessed on the criteria of Artistic Impact, Public Impact, Innovation/Learning, and Planning using a 1 – 10 scale for each criteria.
- Applicants will be notified of Phase 2 results no later than November 29, 2019.
Group Agreements
All members of the assessment committee will be expected to honour the following group agreements when discussing applications:
- We commit to creating a safe space for everyone by:
- Respecting each person regardless of how they identify, including their gender, sexuality, age, religion, beliefs, nation, etc.
- Not interrupting others.
- Being mindful of how much time/space we each take up in discussions.
- Making time/space for others to speak.
- Using “I” statements (“I feel,” “I think,” “I wonder,” etc.).
- Replacing criticism with questions and encouragement.
- Respecting those who wish to listen silently.
- We will respect all art forms, traditional, contemporary or other.
- We will consider what the criteria mean for each applicant based on:
- How they define their own practice.
- What is appropriate within their artistic discipline.
- Their stage of career/practice/experience/expertise in their form.
- A respect for the unique traditions and rights of different First Nations, Metis and Inuit nations/communities.
- We will try to focus every conversation around what we appreciate about every project.
- We will remember that this is not a panel of experts:
- We will honour the knowledge and experience others share.
- We will not impose arbitrary standards or ideas on an applicant or their project/activity that are not appropriate to the specific context.
- We will acknowledge the experiences and values that may make each of us biased.
- We will allow others to help us check in with our biases in a respectful and productive way.
Please refer to the Assessment Committee Terms of Reference for further information about the assessment process.
How to Apply
Applications will only be accepted online through Calgary Arts Development’s grant interface. Please see the above Equity Statement for information on accessibility and accommodation needs.
New users must set up an account to access the interface. For instructions on how to use the online grant interface, please refer to the Granting Interface Questions in our Investment Program FAQ.
Applications must be submitted before 4:30pm MST on the day of the deadlines. Late applications will not be accepted. Extensions may be provided upon request in certain circumstances in advance of a deadline. Consult the Deadline Extension Policy for more information.
Please note that anonymized application information from both successful and unsuccessful applications may be used for program evaluation and research purposes.
Ineligible Expenses
Funds from this program are undirected and unrestricted, and may be used towards any aspect of the artist’s practice, work, or life as an artist. The only expenses artists may not direct funds towards are:
- Purchase of equipment over $1,000 (capital costs).
- Tuition and costs associated with attending post-secondary or credit/degree/diploma granting educational programs.
Please contact the Community Investment team if you have any questions about allowable expenses.
Application Checklist
Phase One: Request for Proposal
- Name and Contact Information
- Discipline
- Years of Practice
- Artist Resume/CV (upload 1MB, PDF)
- Artistic Practice Statement (upload 1MB or 500 words, PDF)
- Proposal (upload 2MB, no more than two pages, PDF)
- Describe your artistic practice and planned work for 2020 within the context of the program criteria of Artistic Impact, Public Impact, and Innovation/Learning. You may consider the below questions as a guide.
- What is the most urgent, relevant, or important aspect of your artistic practice right now?
- How will this funding help you address, leverage, or unlock the potential of this aspect?
- What are the challenges or barriers you encounter in your practice?
- What are you interested in inquiring or learning about your practice or the way you create work?
- How do you define the community and/or public for your artistic work?
- How do you engage with your community and public?
- Work Samples
- Provide up to five samples of your recent work (assessors will read or view up to 10 minutes of material) (upload 2MB max, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PDF, JPG, or links).
- Reference Contact Info
Phase Two: Application (Only successful applicants to the Request for Proposals Phase)
- Experience Section
- Describe five experiences which have shaped your artistic practice. These experiences may be personal, educational, social, political, or artistic, and may have taken place at any stage of your artistic practice.
- What was the experience, why was it important to you, and how did it shape the way you understand or undertake your artistic work? (300 words each)
- Artistic Goals Section
- Clearly outline your artistic goals for January 2020 to December 2020 (600 words).
- Describe how your artistic goals and plans for 2020 will help you achieve impact in the three criteria areas of Artistic Impact, Public Impact, and Innovation/Learning (1,200 words)
- Artist Plan/Timeline for January 2020 to December 2020 (upload 2MB, PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX)
- How will you achieve your artistic goals?
- Include the tasks, activities, projects, events, etc. you are considering for 2020, and if these are confirmed or proposed
- Budget for January 2020 to December 2020
- How will you dedicate expenses to achieve your artistic goals? (200 words)
- Budget (upload 2MB, XLS, XLSX, PDF)
- Evaluation Section (600 words)
- What does success mean to you as an artist?
- How will you know you have achieved your goals?
- How will you capture your learnings and measure your success throughout the year?
Conditions of Grant and Reporting
Applicants will be notified of their results in both phases by email. Successful applicants will be required to sign and return an Investment Agreement by December 9, 2019 in order to receive funding. Calgary Arts Development will provide a T4A for the grant amount. For information about tax requirements for artist grants, please consult CRA guidelines.
A Final Report will be due by March 31, 2021. In addition to a final report, artists funded through this program will be asked to participate in a short annual program impact survey for each of the five years following their successful application.
Successful applicants may be asked to participate in an optional peer-learning focus group facilitated by an external facilitator, and may be invited to complete a social network analysis survey, the Calgary Arts Professionals Survey, and to participate in the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Census.
Final Report
A Final Report will be assigned to successful applicants in the grant interface with a deadline of March 31, 2021.
- Describe the tasks, activities, projects, and events you completed over the course of 2020. Did anything change from your original artist plan provided in the application (800 words)?
- Describe how you achieved your artistic goals as described in your application (800 words).
- Describe the learnings you captured and measurements of your success captured throughout the year using the evaluation processes identified in your application (800 words).
- Describe the impact of this funding on your overall artistic practice and career (800 words).
- Upload your budget with actuals (2MB, XLS, XLSX).
- Support Material
Unsuccessful Applicant Reporting
Unsuccessful applicants may be invited to participate in an optional peer learning focus group facilitated by an external facilitator. Artists may be invited to participate in a short annual survey to measure long-term program impact. Participants would be compensated for their participation.
Collection, Use, Disclosure of Grant Information
Personal information is received by Calgary Arts Development from people and organizations who apply for grants, members of committees assessing applications, and many others in the course of its activities. Calgary Arts Development will never reveal personal information to any third party without your prior knowledge and consent, unless required to do so by law.
Information provided in both successful and unsuccessful grant applications may be used to plan, evaluate and review programs, and for generating statistics for these activities: statistical reporting, studies, issue and trend analysis. Information shared when reporting in these ways will be anonymized and only shared in aggregate. No personal information provided in grant applications will be shared publicly without prior applicant consent.
Questions
Consult the Investment Program FAQ for answers to common questions about the program.
Our team is here to support you! If you have any questions about the program contact the Community Investment team at grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com or 403.476.2031.
Download the Full Program Guidelines as a PDF
