Original Peoples Investment Program: Info Session Video and Transcript

Richelle Bear Hat: Welcome to the online info session for Calgary Arts Development 2024 Original Peoples Investment Program.

The purpose of this session is to share about the Original Peoples Investment Program in a more auditory and visual way with closed captioning for folks who prefer to take in information that way.

It will also include some added context, a couple program updates and a few examples and approaches that might be helpful when considering if you will apply and how best to do so.

My name is Richelle Bear Hat. I use she/her pronouns. I’m a grant program specialist at Calgary Arts Development and one of the primary contacts for this program. I’m happy to introduce Areum Kim as the other primary contact. Please feel free to reach out to either of us if you have any questions or need support applying.

Van Chu, our Grants Coordinator is also available to help with any general or technical questions about the online grant platform or any of our other grant programs. Van monitors the team’s general email address, which is grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com, which is a good go-to if you aren’t sure who to contact. Van is also responsible for things like administering grant payments, investment agreements and T4As at tax time, so she connects a lot with applicants and grantees.

As part of our responsibility to Calgarians to ensure equitable access to public funding, Calgary Arts Development is dedicated to addressing and working to eliminate institutional inequity in our programs, policies and practices.

We acknowledge that the land we gather on, Mohkinsstsis, is the ancestral territory of the Siksikaitsitapi — the Blackfoot people — comprising the Siksika, Kainai and Piikani Nations, as well as Treaty 7 signatories, the Tsuut’ina Nation, the Îyârhe Nakoda Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney First Nations. Today this land is home to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government Districts 5 and 6 as well as many First Nations and Inuit from across Turtle Island.

Calgary Arts Development is committed to the process of eliminating institutional racism, ableism and barriers in our programs, policies and practices. We are putting this into action by centring the creativity and leadership of those communities most impacted by structural inequities.

As an organization, we acknowledge that our actions, both conscious and unconscious, past and present, have benefited some communities while limiting opportunities and outcomes for others, including but not limited to Indigenous communities, Black communities, persons of colour, persons with disabilities, d/Deaf communities, as well as 2SLGBTQIA+ and gender-diverse individuals.

While we have been continuing to expand and improve our programs, processes, and policies around equity and accessibility, it is an ongoing learning and unlearning journey and commitment. We aim to continue building relationships and learning from our communities about the specific challenges that exist in granting and working to create more equitable systems.

Accommodation and accessibility. In recognition of some of the barriers I previously mentioned, we will work one-on-one with applicants to develop accommodations or approaches that suit their abilities and situations.

Some examples of accommodation are:

• Translation of written materials into other languages including ASL.
• Transcription of verbal meetings or audio and video recordings into a written document.
• Language interpretation for phone, video or in-person meetings.
• Video or audio applications. This means that if you would prefer to answer application questions verbally, you can submit an audio or video recording of yourself, or our staff can help record your responses using an online platform such as Zoom. And,
• Grant writing assistance.

Application assistance. We recognize that our program staff may not always have the necessary skills, relationships, or capacity to fully support all applicants’ needs, especially applicants who identify as d/Deaf or hard of hearing, living with a cognitive, developmental, or physical disability, living with mental illness or facing language, geographic or cultural barriers. If you are an applicant that experiences these or other barriers that make it difficult to fairly access our programs, you may wish to seek out individualized one to one assistance from someone outside of care to staff to assist you with the application process.

If this is something you need, Calgary Arts Development may be able to directly pay that external support person for the hours that they spend assisting you with your application. We also acknowledge additional barriers may be present such as technological barriers related to limited internet or computer access for example, and encourage artists to reach out to us with any questions.

You may choose to get support from an artistic peer, a friend or family member, or a professional service provider.

What services can they assist you with? Language translation, general transcription or editing services, application development, assistance with framing your ideas and concepts, or organizing support material.

What part of the application process can they assist you with?

Reviewing program guidelines and deciding if you want to apply, preparing and submitting an application, receiving and accepting a commission or funding, for example, support when interpreting grant notifications or completing and returning an investment agreement, or completing a direct deposit form, preparing and submitting a final report.

How do I request application assistance? Simply call or email us before you apply, and let us know that you are interested in requesting approval for paid application assistance.

A reminder that the grants email is grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com. You do not need to disclose any specifics or details about the barriers you experience unless you wish to. All we need to know is that you are experiencing accessibility-related barriers and are interested in accessing paid application assistance.

Original Peoples Investment Program overview. This program is intended to provide one-time project funding to individual artists, collectives and Indigenous-led and centred arts organizations in Treaty 7. While projects do not have to take place in Calgary, applicants must be Calgary-based. We also accept applications from Treaty 7 Nation members living within Treaty 7, Southern Alberta, if they can demonstrate a clear connection to Calgary/Mohkinsstsis communities.

If you are not based in Calgary, please contact us to discuss this before applying.

The Original Peoples Investment Program supports the development, preservation and revitalization of First Nations, Métis and Inuit art through arts-based projects that are supported and validated by First Nations, Métis & Inuit artists, community elders and knowledge keepers. We recognize and support both traditional and contemporary Indigenous artists and art practices. This program is developed and validated annually with the support of our Indigenous Advisory Committee.

Eligible applicants must pursue a professional practice, but we welcome applications from artists at any stage of practice or career. We do not have standard definitions for emerging, mid-career or established artist, as these definitions can vary greatly based on artistic discipline, type of practice, and individual experiences.

This program is open to individual artists, artists, collectives, cultural workers, arts administrators and curators, and Indigenous-led and -centred arts organizations.

If the art organization’s membership and staff are not entirely First Nations, Métis or Inuit people, a conversation should be initiated with a grant specialist responsible for this program to determine eligibility. Eligibility will be determined based on how organizational decisions are made, how this process is undertaken, who is being called to the decision-making table, and who is leading the work.

Applicants may apply to this program for one project or one distinct phase of a project. Please ensure you are clear about what phase of work you are applying for, especially for larger or longer-term projects that may have multiple stages or phases. If you have questions about your project phases, please contact us to chat.

Projects should have a clear start and end date with a specific set of activities, processes and goals.

Individual artists may apply for up to $20,000. Artist collectives may apply for up to $25,000, and Indigenous arts organizations may apply for up to $30,000. Total funding available for this program is $650,000.

General eligibility. Applicants may submit only one application per program deadline. We will not accept more than one application from the same account on the online grant platform. This means that individual artists must apply using their own individual account, while artist collectives must apply using their collective account. And, arts organizations must apply through their organizational account.

A project may only be submitted by one applicant per program deadline. This means that multiple members of a group cannot submit for the same project to the same program deadline.

We cannot fund the same phase of a project more than once, regardless of calendar year. So please ensure you are planning larger projects ahead of time and clearly outlining the phase of work you are applying for. As long as the phases of a project are distinct, you may apply for a future Calgary Arts Development grant to support the next distinct phase of the work.

You may not apply to this program if you have any final reports past their due date for prior grants. As of 2024, you may not have more than two open grants with Calgary Arts Development, including grants for which a deadline extension has been approved. For more information, please review the Open Grant Policy. Lastly, you may reapply for the same project if a previous application was unsuccessful.

Program timeline. All applications are being accepted up until the application deadline of September 18, before 4:30pm MST. The server gets very busy on the day of the deadline, so please try to submit early and do not wait until the last minute or even the last day, if you can help it. It’s always safer to submit in advance of the deadline in case you have any technical issues or something comes up like you get sick or have an emergency.

There is no autosave feature in this grant portal, so please save your work often to help prevent losing any information. Many artists will write their responses outside the grant portal and then copy/paste them over when they are ready.

We encourage applicants to open a draft in the portal at their earliest convenience so our team can potentially remind those who have outstanding reports. All applications to the program will be peer-assessed between October and November. Notifications of the grant results will be sent over email by the end of November, letting applicants know if they were successful or not, and confirming grant amounts.

Successful applicants will receive an Investment Agreement outlining the terms of the grant which they’ll need to review, sign and return. As Investment Agreements are received, funds will then be released by a direct deposit. The processing time for agreements can take a few weeks so most grant payments will occur throughout the months of December and January.

Please keep in mind that we are unable to fund fully retroactive projects, which means that your project may have already been underway before you submit your application or before you receive the grant results, but you cannot apply for a project that will be fully complete before the program deadline.

Projects funded through this program must be complete by March 18, 2026.

Successful grantees will be required to complete a brief final report to share updates on how their project went, what they learned, and how the grant benefited their practice. Final reports also include a place to share a budget with actuals, so it’s important to keep a good track of receipts and where the grant funding is spent. Final reports will be due 60 days after your indicated project end date.

If any significant changes regarding this program timeline must shift, applicants will be notified as soon as possible.

What you can apply for. Projects may include research projects to inform your artistic work processes, approaches, etc., the creation and development of new work, adaptations of previous work or experimentations.

Professional development and learning. This can include participating in courses, classes, workshops, residencies, training, mentorships, apprenticeships, internships, networking in industry events or conferences.

Presenting or sharing work with the public. This includes sharing, distributing or selling your work through exhibitions, installations, events, presentations, performances, touring releases or publishing.

Marketing and promotion. This includes activities related to publicity and outreach, the branding, promotion and marketing of your work and artistic practice, networking and industry events.

If you have any questions about other potential project activities, please contact program staff to discuss before applying.

Eligible expenses funds from this program may go towards almost any expense directly related to your project. There is a full list of eligible expenses in the program guidelines that are all relatively straightforward, but I will highlight a few specific things here.

The first is a reminder that we want to see artists paid for their work, which includes yourself depending on the project. It might also include compensating Elders, Knowledge Keepers, mentors, collaborators, and more.

Artist fees, professional fees per diems, honourariums and subsistence are all eligible expenses through this program. When it comes to paying yourself and or others through a grant, however, the way you frame these amounts will vary. Also, lean on other artists in the community and do your research to ensure you are paying people fairly and that rates and amounts are mutually agreed upon and well supported.

The second piece I would like to highlight is that in past years, we have always had a cap on how much your CADA grant could go towards the purchase of equipment, which is considered a capital expense or asset as you own it and it lives on or lasts beyond the length of just this one project. However, this year we have made the decision to remove the cap altogether.

As it states in the program guidelines, any equipment requested must be specific and directly related to the completion and success of your proposed project, not just your overall practice. This means that similarly to any expense of your project budget, you will need to make a clear case for how this equipment is directly related, necessary and relevant to the completion and success of this specific project.

The final piece I want to highlight is that while course fees are eligible, this refers to individual courses or continuing educational courses that do not count towards a credit, diploma or degree-granting program, meaning we can’t pay for your diploma or degree. So if you are taking courses in pursuit of this or making work related to this, we cannot cover any costs associated.

If you have any questions about expenses. Please reach out.

Peer assessment. Applications to the program will be reviewed by an independent assessment committee made up of First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists, peers and community members. The membership of the committee will be chosen through public nominations and staff expertise.

This program will have five- to seven-member committees. The volume of applications received will determine the number and size of committees required to assess full program.

Membership of each committee is designed to create context, understanding and respect for artistic discipline, gender, sexuality, age, religion, beliefs, physical and neurological identities. Anyone can ask to participate on a Calgary Arts Development Assessment Committee by completing the assessor nomination form or by emailing grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.

How to apply. We accept applications to this program through our online grant platform, which is called Smart Simple. If you don’t already have an account with us, you will need to create an account and set up your user profile before you can apply. If you are applying as a collective, you must have a separate collective account. If you have already applied to CADA before, you may log in as usual.

When you log in, you will notice that there is a section called “My Profile”. Please ensure that your individual and or collective’s profile is fully complete and up to date. The profile section includes information about you such as your current contact info, years of practice, the disciplines you work in, your artistic CV/resume and your artistic practice statement.

You will also notice a section called “Open Opportunities”. This is where you will find any open grant applications currently available to you. There you should see the Original People’s Investment Program. Click apply and begin application to open a draft application form. There will be multiple tabs that contain all parts of the application form, including written questions, a budget timeline and support material.

Remember to save as you go. You can save and return to your draft application as much as you like. After you’ve made your first draft, you no longer need to go to open opportunities. Instead, you will see your draft application on the home page when you log in under the drafts tab. When you’ve completed your application, you can hit “Save and Validate” first, and Smart Simple will check/validate your application to make sure you aren’t missing any mandatory information.

Once your application is complete, please submit before the stated application deadline. You should receive an email confirming your submission. If not, call or email us to confirm.

Application checklist. Besides your profile information, here is a checklist of what you’ll be asked to provide in the application form itself. Your preferred name and pronouns, project name and the start and end date of your project.

A new section available this year is the option to select a primary theme. Here, you can choose one that best describes the main goals or outcome of your project. If you don’t see a theme which best suits your project, please add your own under other. The themes are community connection and/or relationship building.

So this is any project which focuses on creating new community connections, deepening existing community connections, or creating and deepening one very specific relationship, such as with a mentor or Elder. Traditional culture revitalization. This can include any project which focuses on the revitalization of traditional art forms. This may be in combination with contemporary elements.

Focused creation. Any project which is primarily focused on the creation and development of new work, with a finished work as the outcome.

Truth and history. This is any project which aims to wrestle with, bring to light, process, research or delve into our histories, whether it’s pre colonialism or to do with the colonial experience.

Professional development. Any project which has to do with the development of the artist as a professional or career development such as taking a non-degree granting course, doing a residency, building a website or marketing yourself or your work.

Research and exploration. This includes any project which is primarily about research and exploration. This may be through taking a course or self-directed and may be community oral based research, academic-style research, artistic technique-focused research, or any other kind which may not be listed here.

Language, Learning, Returning. This is any project which explores personal or community-based relationships to Indigenous languages in relation to how they have changed and are continually changing. This can be a creative response that engages with your indigenous language that makes sense to you.

Art for Social Change. Any project which is primarily meant as a piece of artist activism, such as creating pieces of art meant to provoke move conversations forward on a political or social issues or bring new conversations to light.

And there is another section so if there is a theme that is not listed here that you would like to respond to, you may add it here.

Then the next sections are your funding request. Reminder for individuals, you can apply for up to $20,000. For collectives, it is $25,000, and for arts organizations it is $30,000.

Then there’s your project description, your project budget, budget support material, support material and a project plan and timeline.

Project description. This is where you will describe your project, including what will occur. When will it take place and where will it take place? Try to be clear, straightforward and specific. Assessors should very clearly understand what you want to do with this grant. After reading this section, this sets the stage for their understanding of the rest of your grant.

Project budget. In this section, you can fill out the budget template with all relevant project expenses and revenues. Please make sure to use the notes section to describe each item in detail and show your calculations. Please be specific wherever possible and break down your expenses for clarity. Assessors often wish budgets had more clarity and detail provided so don’t leave room for questions or confusion here. Be very clear about every single item.

Budget support material. Please add budget-related support material to help demonstrate your budget estimates. Here you can share how you calculate the different amounts. For example, any research quotes, standard fee schedules, correspondence that confirms rates or past examples of revenue.

Support material. Please upload any additional material that will support and strengthen your application, and help assessors understand more about your artistic practice, project or planning. There are options to include PDFs, images, videos, audio files or links.

Examples include samples of your work, mock-ups or drafts or works in progress, excerpts or a synopsis, letters of support, resumes or bios of collaborators or others involved, letters of confirmation, research material, or planning documents.

Project timeline. There is no standard template for this. You can use any format for your timeline, so long as it’s converted into a PDF format when you upload it. Your project timeline should clearly show the committee how you will accomplish your project in more detail than your project description. Make sure you include dates, locations, who is involved, and a description of each item if it isn’t apparent. Ensure you are including enough detail to clearly demonstrate what needs to happen, when and how.

It may be helpful to include some thought around why this is the most reasonable timeline for you and this project, particularly to help assessors understand feasibility. especially since not all of them may be familiar with your discipline or capacity or processes and approaches.

Please make note of things that are confirmed or pending when necessary. If something important changes from pending to confirmed after you submit, please let us know as we may be able to make updates to your application or let the assessors know, depending on where we are at in the process.

Questions to think about:

• What does it mean for you to be an Indigenous artist, or for organizations to represent an Indigenous arts perspective or identity?
• How do you think about your sense of connection and relationship to Indigenous community and the land, and what does it mean to you?
• Describe your artistic practice. What is the work you create and why is it important to you? How do you approach the creation of your work?
• Describe your project and how it relates to the above, as well as your own artistic goals.
• Describe the opportunities for relationship building created by your project, including but not limited to collaboration, mentorship, discussions, forums, participatory activities, workshops, artist talkbacks, audience experience, etc.

Program considerations and scoring. All projects will be evaluated and funded based on these three considerations or criteria. Artistic impact, community connection and planning. Based on the information you provide in your application, assessors will rate the level to which they agree or disagree with each of these program considerations. The four ratings are: strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree.

Each program consideration will be weighted equally. The score assigned to each rating will be consistent. For example, strongly agree will always equal the same number of points on the back end.

Assessment committees are responsible for reviewing and scoring the applications assigned to their committees online according to the three program considerations. Committees will then meet to discuss applications together, adjust scores and make recommendations. Program staff are responsible for facilitating these discussions and ensuring that the conversations are fair and appreciative and that assessors are acting within the group agreements and process outlined in the terms of reference and program guidelines.

The committee’s final scores will result in a list of projects recommended for funding. Calgary Arts Development staff will review these recommendations and finalize the funding list. Note about partial funding — partial funding may be allocated and primarily only if there is an eligible expenses within a project budget, or if the majority of a committee recommended less for a specific reason.

Note about tiebreakers in the event of a tie — Priority will be given to projects from artists who have not received a Calgary Arts Development grant before or within the last two years.

What about taxes? Lastly, it is very important to consider the tax implications of receiving a grant. Calgary Arts Development is required to issue a T4A tax form to successful grantees for the full grant amount received during a calendar year. This includes the primary applicant receiving grant payment on behalf of an artist collective. Please note that you must have a valid Canadian Social Insurance Number or individual tax number to receive a CADA grant.

When filing your taxes, you may deduct all reasonable grant expenses related to the production of your project from the total grant amount. This does not include your own artist fee, which is taxable income. Other expenses such as subsistence or living expenses related to your primary residence and expenses which can be reimbursed cannot be deducted.

It is your responsibility to document all expenses related to your project in order to claim them against your grant amount. Keep all receipts, invoices and correspondence for expenses. If you are paying other artists, ensure you have written documentation of the agreed upon amounts and evidence that the payment was made. While we do have some tax resources and info available in our investment program FAQ, Calgary Arts Development does not offer tax advice.

We recommend that you consult a tax professional or accountant when planning your grant applications and preparing your taxes each year.

Thank you for tuning into this overview of the Original People’s Investment Program. We are happy to answer any questions and can offer support through the application process. Please reach out to us through email or by phone. And again, here is our contact info. Happy grant writing!