Project Grant Program – Individuals and Collectives

Jasmine Piper: Hello. My name is Jasmine Piper, and I am joined by Sadie and Janice. Welcome to the information session for the 2026 Project Grant for Individuals and Collectives.

The purpose of this recording is to share information and context about the project grant for the 2026 grant year. However, please be aware that this info session will not be going through all the details about this program. Everything important that applicants need to know is fully outlined in the Program Guidelines on our website as well as our investment program FAQs, frequently asked questions. Please read those documents in full before you consider applying.

If you require any kind of support to read or understand those documents, please reach out to us. CADA is happy to help with any costs related to translation or interpretation. Staff are also here to answer questions and provide clarity. When in doubt, please reach out.

The primary contact for this program, is Jasmine Piper, please reach out to me directly with any questions you may have about the project grant for individuals and collectives.

If you have any questions specifically related to the online grant platform or any technical issues, please contact grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.

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 and 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.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Calgary Arts Development Authority, commonly referred to as CADA for short, we are the City of Calgary’s designated arts development and municipal granting organization. We are mandated by the City of Calgary to steward public tax dollars for the public good, for the benefit of all Calgarians. We believe in arts-led city building and fostering a sustainable and resilient arts sector which we do primarily through making grant investments and providing opportunities to individual artists, artist collectives and non-profit arts organizations here in Calgary.

I want to take a moment to talk about CADA’s Commitment to Equity, which is an ongoing and never-ending commitment and learning journey. It’s important to acknowledge that systems like granting and public funding are usually designed in a one-size-fits-all way, meaning they are designed for the dominant culture and are rooted in colonial Western European academic systems which create barriers to access for many artists in our communities who are seeking and deserving of support. One obvious example of this is that we currently share our programs and accept applications primarily in an online written format in English. This alone creates technological, linguistic communication and cultural barriers, to name a few.

As a public funder, we have a responsibility to ensure equitable access to public funding. We envision a city where all artists have the freedom, agency and platform to share and amplify their stories, art, cultures and experiences. A city where Calgarians of all backgrounds can access, create and participate in art as every part of their everyday lives. To that end, we are dedicated to addressing and working to eliminate institutional inequity in our programs, policies and practices.

Our staff are accountable to ensure that lines of communication are welcoming, clear and open, and our application and assessment processes are fair and deeply considerate.

While we have been continuing to expand and improve our processes and policies around equity, accessibility and accommodation, we still have a long way to go.

We aim to continue building relationships and learning from our communities, particularly those most directly affected, about the specific challenges that exist in granting and working to create more equitable systems for everyone.

So, how does CADA’s Commitment to Equity translate or apply to you as artists and potential applicants to our programs? When applying to public grant programs like this one, we ask artists to consider concepts like ‘nothing about us without us,’ a concept and value that has been around for a very long time now, but I believe really grew in the 1990s from disability rights activists. In this context, it’s the idea that if you are creating work about or for a specific community, that community needs to be actively engaged, ideally from the beginning, and there needs to be a thoughtful, intentional and reciprocal relationship with clear permissions, benefits and value for those communities.

We value and honour lived experience and the intersectional identities and unique perspectives of different people and communities. When applying to grant programs, it can be helpful to pause and ask yourself, why this? why now? and why me? Be very mindful about the projects you choose to undertake and how you go about undertaking them and engaging with others.

Connected to this concept, there are things that CADA will not tolerate, such as hate speech, cultural appropriation, or active exclusionary behaviours, so please be aware that any applications that contain this will not be supported.

When it comes to evaluating applications, this is something we ask peer committees to consider: Are applicants being thoughtful and considerate of the work they make, who they make it for and how they make it, and why? I’ll expand on this more when we talk about the program considerations for this grant.

We understand that our programs and processes create barriers to access for many artists and organizations who want to apply. In recognition of these barriers, our Applicant Support and Accessibility Policy is available for those who may need support from program staff or financial assistance to access support from someone outside of Calgary Arts Development. This could include support for any part of the granting process, whether it be understanding our programs and who is eligible and deciding if they want to apply or not, creating and submitting a grant application, or support after receiving a grant, such as understanding your grant agreement, sharing project updates or submitting a final report.

Some examples of accommodations are:

• Translation of written materials into other languages.
• Transcription of verbal meetings or audio and video recordings into written documentation.
• Language interpretation for phone or video 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 or Teams.
• And general grant writing assistance.

We will work one-on-one with applicants and develop accommodations through conversation and check-ins. Our team can assist you over the phone, in person or online. Help is available for applicants even if they choose not to apply for the program. In addition to this, staff will do our best to provide support or share feedback with you over the phone, video calls or email. Just remember to reach out early. We can only guarantee you feedback on draft applications up to 10 business days before a program deadline.

To help with managing volume, we are also hosting virtual open office Q&A sessions, throughout the month of April and May. There will be five virtual open offices for 60 minutes each leading up until the week before the deadline. These virtual open offices are offered on different days of the week at different times of day to help accommodate various schedules.

Please take advantage of these if questions arise throughout the process of applying. In these 60-minute sessions, staff will basically be hanging out in a Zoom room answering any questions about the project grant and providing applicants with support. Some artists like to come and hang out the entire time and listen to other people’s questions simply to learn, and some folks prefer to pop in and out just to ask their own specific questions. The registration links for these are on our website, in the same place you found this recorded info session. Just email if you cannot find it on the project grant program page.

We understand that our staff may not always have the skills or capacity to fully support all applicants’ needs. If you are an applicant who faces any barriers that make it difficult to fairly access our programs, you may wish to seek out personal one-to-one assistance from someone outside of Calgary Arts Development to help you with the application process. If this is something you need, Calgary Arts Development can directly pay for external support for the hours they spend helping you with your application. This might include artists who identify as: D/deaf or hard of hearing, having a cognitive, developmental or physical disability, living with a mental illness, facing language, geographic or cultural barriers, facing technological barriers, limited internet or computer access and additional barriers that are not listed here.

Who can you get assistance from? We may be able to offer some recommendations for professional service providers, but it is ultimately your responsibility to select the support person or service that you wish to use. We want you to have trust and comfort with the person you choose to support you, and you may choose to get support from a professional service provider, an artistic peer or friend or family member.

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

What part of the application process can they assist 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, and preparing and submitting a final report.

What is the maximum amount Calgary Arts Development will give? We understand that costs will vary, and we expect hourly rates and total hours billed to be reasonable, fair and equitable. The maximum we can provide is $600.

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. Emails can be sent to grants@calgaryartsdevelopment.com. You do not need to disclose any specific details about the barriers you experience unless you wish to. For example, you don’t have to share your diagnosis, all we need to know is that you are experiencing accessibility-related barriers and are interested in accessing paid application assistance.

We are not able to offer application assistance for artists who hire or work with grant writers for professional or time-saving reasons, as opposed to accessibility-related reasons.

Staff will chat with you to ensure that you are eligible to apply to the grant programs you are interested in first, and then confirm if you are approved for application assistance.

After a CADA staff member has approved your request, we will make a note in your file so that you do not need to continue to request assistance for every single grant program or every phase of the application process. For example, when applying, when reporting, this note will only be visible to staff members with access to our online grant platform.

Submitting an invoice to CADA. After you have received application support from someone, they will need to submit a basic invoice to Calgary Arts Development so we can pay them directly. We do not pay you, the applicant, we pay the person who provided the service or support.

The invoice must include the support person’s full legal name, phone number, email address and mailing address, the applicant’s name, the name of the program that they helped you with, the total number of hours they helped you and their hourly rate — there is no recommended hourly rate, as it depends on the service and context. We expect rates to be fair and equitable for the person and service provided. And finally, the total amount requested.

Staff will review the invoice and follow up with the support person to ensure we all have the information we need, i.e. banking information to pay them directly through electronic fund transfer. Please note, these options for staff support and outside support, or paid assistance, are not mutually exclusive.

You can access either option or both to help support you during any stage of the application process. In fact, it can be helpful for you and your support person to connect with the Calgary Arts Development program staff to ask questions so that you can both understand the program, requirements, criteria and processes.

Please reach out early if you have any questions.

Program Overview

This program is intended to provide one-time project funding for a specific project, activity or initiative to Calgary-based individual artists, artist collectives or cultural workers. Please read the Guidelines for a full definition of each of those categories before applying, and please keep in mind, this program cannot accept applications from arts administrators, agents or managers, production companies, registered for-profit corporations or businesses or registered not-for-profit organizations.

Applicants may be working in any artistic discipline at any stage of practice. While activities do not have to take place in Calgary, eligible applicants must be Calgary-based. This means you primarily live and work in Calgary, i.e., for at least six months of the year. You should be able to demonstrate that the majority of your work is accessible to the citizens of Calgary, and that you have a meaningful and ongoing relationship with the city and its artistic communities.

If you do not currently reside in Calgary, please contact program staff to discuss your eligibility before applying.

We acknowledge that there are many artists who are new or returning to the City of Calgary and may not be familiar with grant programs or the local arts community. If you are a newcomer, immigrant, refugee or re-emerging Calgary artist and have questions or concerns about eligibility or navigating the grant process, please know that our program staff are available to help guide and support you.

It’s also important to note that you do not need to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to receive a CADA grant, but you do need to be able to report on this grant to the Canada Revenue Agency. We welcome applications from those working in all artistic disciplines and their various cultural forms. This includes but is not limited to: Art for social change. arts education, art service, circus arts, community art, craft, curatorial practice, dance, D/deaf arts, digital arts, disability and/or mad arts, film, Indigenous arts, interdisciplinary, literary arts, media arts, multidisciplinary, music, opera, orchestra, performance, public art, social practice, sound art, theatre, transdisciplinary and visual arts.

What can you apply for? 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 the 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 may include:

Research projects to inform your artistic work, processes, approaches, etc.; creation or production of work; the creation and development of new work; adaptations of previous work; experimentation, etc.; professional development and learning; participating in courses, classes, workshops, residencies, trainings, mentorships, apprenticeships, networking and industry events/ conferences.

You can present or share your work with the public, sharing, distributing, or selling your work through exhibitions, installations, events, presentations, performances, touring, releases, publishing, and you can market and promote activities related to the publicity and outreach, branding, promotion and marketing of your work and artistic practice, and you can network and attend industry events.

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

There is also a list of activities that we will not fund through this program located in the guidelines, so please read those as well.

Projects should have a clear start and end date, with a specific set of activities, processes and goals. And a reminder that while the applicant must be Calgary-based, the project can take place online or in person, locally, nationally or internationally.

Individual artists may apply for up to $20,000, and artist collectives may apply for up to $25,000 towards their projects.

The total funding available for this program is $3.1 million.

Not all projects will require the maximum request amount, and I will talk about the best ways to approach developing your budget later on. That said, if everyone who has applied to this program were to request the maximum grant amount available, we would be able to fund a minimum of 124 to 155 applications. This number is likely to be higher, given that the request amounts will vary.

While we cannot say for certain what the volume of applications will be this year, it has increased in past years, even doubling during the pandemic years. For context, in 2024, we received just over 500 applications with a success rate of 32 per cent, and in 2025 we received just over 600 applications with a success rate of 30 per cent.

Program Timeline

The full program guidelines were published on the website and applications opened on March 23. Applications are being accepted until the application deadline of May 13, 2026, before 4:30 pm MT.

We don’t accept applications after 4:30 MT, so please make a note in your calendar about the deadline so you do not miss it.

We make our deadlines at 4:30 instead of midnight so that it’s during office hours and program staff are available to help with any last-minute technical issues or questions. The server gets very busy on the day of a deadline, so please try to submit early on.

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.

Please see the Deadline Extension Policy for information about extensions.

After the deadline, applications to the program will be reviewed and evaluated by peer assessment committees until early September.

This assessment period allows staff time to review applications for completeness before assigning them to the committees and gives ample time for assessors to read applications, score them online, and meet multiple times with their respective committees in order to make final recommendations. More will be shared about the peer assessment in a few slides.

Notifications for the grant results will be sent over email in mid-September, letting applicants know if they were successful or not and confirming grant amounts. If you don’t see an email by September 21, please reach out. Funds will be distributed directly after results go out, between late September throughout October. Funds are released after grantees sign and return their grant investment agreements.

Since the grant results and funding will not occur until September/October of 2026, applicants must keep this in mind when planning. Before applying, please consider your own timeline, cash flow and circumstances. If your project will already be done before the results and funding are released, please ensure that you are able to cover all costs on your own and be aware of the possibility of not receiving a grant. If you cannot undertake the project without first confirming and receiving funding, then please ensure it takes place after the funding is scheduled to be released.

Please keep in mind that we are unable to fully fund retroactive projects, which means that your project may already be 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 of May 13, 2026.

Projects funded through this program must be complete by the end of the next year, which is December 31, 2027.

Successful grantees will be required to complete a brief final report to share an update on their completed activities, any learnings and how the grant benefited their practice, along with an updated budget with actuals. It’s very important to keep track of receipts, contracts, invoices, payments, etc. so that you can clearly report on where the grant funding was spent, both to CADA and the CRA come tax time.

Final reports will be due 60 days after the stated project end date in your application.

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

Eligibility Rules

Application eligibility varies by program, so always read the guidelines for the program you are applying to. Some important eligibility rules for the project grant this year are as follows:

• Applicants may not have more than two open grants with Calgary Arts Development, including grants for which a deadline extension has been approved. So long as you’ve completed and submitted your report for a past grant, it is no longer considered open, even if staff have yet to review and approve your final report. For more information, please review the Open Grant Policy.
• You must be in good standing if you wish to apply. This means you cannot have final reports pass their due dates for prior grants. If you do, you will need to submit the report before applying or be granted an extension on your final report.
• Applicants may submit only one application per program deadline. Individual artists may be involved in more than one application, either as a participant or as a member of an artist collective.
• Please apply with the correct account. Individual artists must apply using their Individual account and artist collectives must apply using their collective 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.
• CADA cannot fund the same phase of a project or activity more than once, regardless of calendar year. Please do not apply to more than one CADA program for the same project or phase of a project.
• Please note that if you are awarded funding from another funding source, such as Alberta Foundation for the Arts or Canada Council for the Arts, that fully covers your proposed project expenses, you will not be able to also accept funds from Calgary Arts Development for the same project expenses and you will not be allowed to modify your original proposed Calgary Arts Development budget by increasing your estimated cost, or adding additional expenses to expand the scope or scale of your project.

Please reach out if you have any questions about eligibility or want confirmation about the number of open grants you can have.

We stream applications to help manage volume and group applications that are more similar than not together in assessment. We also use program streams to help design the makeup of assessment committees.

Program Streams

In this program we ask applicants to select one of two program streams. To be assessed within Stream 1, applicants who are applying for a project that primarily involves disciplines and practices such as dance, theatre, music, opera, orchestra, circus, performance, etc. should apply to Stream 1.

Stream 2 applicants who are applying for a project that primarily involves disciplines and practices such as literary, visual arts, craft arts, curation, public art, digital art, media arts, film should all apply to Stream 2.

Assessment committees are multidisciplinary and will be made up primarily of artists who work within the disciplines outlined within each program stream. This helps ensure that there are multiple perspectives on the committees that are familiar with and have knowledge about the different processes, approaches, ways of working, ways of presenting, sharing or performing that are common across different kinds of disciplines.

If your project includes primary disciplines across both streams and you aren’t sure which to select, please reach out to a program specialist to discuss before applying. For example, if you are a dancer who is producing a documentary about dance that is equal parts performance (Stream 1) and filmmaking (Stream 2), we can discuss what your project primarily involves and which perspectives might be most valuable in assessment given the focus of your project.

If you are applying to support a film’s pre-production phase, you might select Stream 2 to ensure that you have a filmmaking perspective, whereas if you were applying to do a series of live dance performances to launch a film, you may select Stream 1 to ensure there are performance perspectives on the committee.

The $3.1 million pool of funding available will be divided between the two program streams based on the number of applications that apply to each stream, and the dollar amount requested within each stream.

Eligible Project Expenses

Funds from this program may go towards almost any expense directly related to your project. When it comes to requesting expenses, please make sure that any expense you request is directly related and necessary to accessing and undertaking your proposed activities. If you include ineligible expenses, please be aware that they may not be included or rewarded funding through this program.

There is a full list of both eligible and ineligible expenses in the program guidelines that are important to read through, 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 your project, it might also include compensating consultants, participants, Knowledge Keepers, mentors, collaborators and more. Artist fees, professional fees, per diems, honorariums 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 or quantify these amounts will vary.

Unlike some funders, we have not set a specific cap or maximum on specific expenses since we understand that the true cost can vary greatly depending on the project, your circumstances, the type of work being done, the scope, the location, the length of time or duration of your project.

If you have questions about artist fees, subsistence, per diems or honorariums, please read our super helpful FAQs, where we define each of these terms in the glossary, and where we also share a write-up of how to frame or calculate artist fees or subsistence requests and when to ask for either.

Also, it can be helpful to lean on other artists in the community with experience and do your research to ensure that you are paying people equitably, and that rates and amounts are mutually agreed upon and supported.

Honestly, if you have the room in your budget and you can pay above the minimum standard fee schedule or rate, it is a minimum recommendation, so please feel free to consider that.

This year, subsistence is now limited to $3,000 per month per person receiving subsistence in the project. We hope this structure will provide clarity around subsistence calculations. We do not require personal information like your lease or your utility bills to support subsistence expenses, but we do want to see a general breakdown of how you calculated your subsistence and the timeframe that it will cover.

There is no maximum amount of time you can request subsistence for, as long as your project is completed by December 31, 2027.

We previously had a cap on how much of your CADA grant could go towards the purchase of equipment, which is considered a capital expense or asset, as you own it, and it lasts well beyond the length of just this one project, and it depreciates over time.

Currently, there is no cap on equipment purchases. That said, there are some important things to consider when you are requesting equipment through a public grant program that I want to emphasize. This does not mean that you can request $20,000 to $25,000 solely in equipment purchases. You are unlikely to be successful if the majority of your grant is simply to equip yourself with a variety of expensive equipment purchases. 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. Just like any expense in your project budget, you will need to make a clear case on how this equipment is directly related, necessary and relevant to the completion and success of the specific project.

We understand that there will be a long-term benefit to owning equipment but be sure to speak on how this specific equipment will impact the project you are proposing in the application.

If relevant, speak to your rationale for purchasing rather than renting the specific equipment. Give the goals, scope or length of your project, or the availability of rentals or overall cost of renting versus purchasing.

Please keep in mind the following considerations for purchasing equipment:

• Do you have the knowledge and experience to be purchasing this specific piece of equipment at this time?
• Does it help you meet a minimum standard within your discipline or industry to achieve a specific goal?
• Will it improve the efficiency or reduce the time it takes you to undertake the work?
• What is your level of readiness and commitment to owning that equipment?
• Have you ever used it before?
• How do you know it’s the correct or best-suited equipment to meet your project needs?
• If you’re in an artist collective, who is responsible for housing and upkeeping the equipment? And is it required to undertake specific training course or mentorship that you are participating in? For example, if you are brand new to filmmaking and are asking to include the purchase of an expensive camera, assessors may have questions around if you have operated this camera before. Have you done adequate research? Is it available for rent during your shoot days? And can you rent first to build up your knowledge and skills before investing in owning?
• The final piece that I want to highlight is that while, of course, fees are eligible, this refers to individual courses or continuing educational courses and do not count toward 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, please reach out.

Where to Apply

We accept applications through an online grant platform called SmartSimple. This can be accessed from the CADA website under Login, which is always in the upper right-hand corner, and it’s linked in multiple areas of the Program Guidelines as well. You can also bookmark the portal login page for convenience when actively working on a grant application.

If you don’t already have an account with us, you will need to create a new account and set up your user profile before you can apply.

As mentioned, if you are applying as a collective rather than an individual, you will have to create a separate collective account that you apply through.

If you already have applied to CADA before, you may log in as usual. If you can’t remember your password, click Forgot Password to reset it. You can also reach out to us to ask if you already have an account in our system and want any info or passwords to be reset.

How to Apply

When you log in, you will notice a section called My Profile. Please ensure that your profile is complete and up-to-date. Collectives will also need a secondary profile called My Organizational Profile that will need to be filled out and saved with the collective’s info. These profiles include your current contact info, years of practice, the disciplines you work in, your artistic CV or resume and your artistic practice statement.

Parts of your profile will automatically transfer to transfer over to any grant application that you submit, so please ensure it’s accurate and up-to-date before submitting. If you make changes to your profile after submitting, those changes will not be reflected in your application.

When you log in, you’ll also notice a section called Open Opportunities. This is where you will find any open grant or public art applications currently available. You should see a Project Grant for Individuals and Collectives. Click Apply and begin application to open a draft application form.

Please take the time to read all instructions throughout the application form, as they are very important and give guidance on what to include, how to make changes, and where to find more information as needed.

There will be multiple tabs for each part of the application. Remember to save as you go. You can save and return to your draft application as much as you like before submitting.

After you’ve opened a draft, you no longer need to go to Open Opportunities. Instead, you can find your application under the Drafts tab of the homepage, when you log into your account.

When you’ve completed your application, or might be close to completing it, you can hit the Save and Validate button and the platform will check over your application to make sure you aren’t missing any mandatory information.

Once everything looks good to go, you can hit submit before the stated program deadline, and the system will validate your application again before it lets you submit.

You should receive an email notification informing you of your successful submission. If you don’t, please reach out to confirm. You’ll include some basic information, such as:

• Your project name, even if it’s a working title.
• A brief one-sentence description of your project, which acts as an identifier or label for your grant application. It’s basically telling us here what you want to do with the grant in 25 words or less. For example, to research and develop a new play and do a reading with a small group of peers for feedback in early 2027
• The total amount that you’re requesting in this grant.
• You’ll also include the start and end date of your project, the phase of the project that you are applying for — remember to ensure that your project falls within an eligible date range for the program.
• And the artistic discipline that is most relevant to this specific application and project. There are many options, including multidisciplinary if your project falls into more than one discipline.
• And you’ll indicate the stream that you are applying to, Stream 1 or 2, which we went over earlier.
• There are also three written questions in the application: the project description, artistic impact, and community connection. Each of these sections should not exceed 500 words each. Just keep in mind that the word counts are simply guides, and they should be considered the maximum, and not necessarily the goal. If you do not need to use up the full word count to make your case, don’t feel compelled to fill space or repeat yourself over and over.
• You’ll also need to include a project budget, timeline, and support material, which I’ll go over later in detail.

Located in your profile is your resume or curriculum vitae/CV. This is a clear list of experiences relevant to your artistic practice, and can include things like education, trainings, workshops, past work, media, awards, grants received. Be sure to include important information such as dates, locations and a very brief description of each experience.

Your resume or CV is a helpful tool for assessors to view alongside your artist statement to better understand your practice, where you are in your career.

There are many valuable experiences and entry points into life and career in the arts. It’s okay to have gaps in practice or times where you aren’t creating or working in the arts for whatever reason. Your CV does not have to only include professional experiences, you can include anything that helps people understand how you got there. A little bio or blurb at the beginning is okay, too.

Many artists have their resumes available on their websites, which may be a helpful way to see the various ways that they can be formatted, particularly for different disciplines.

For the purposes of our programs, simplicity and readability are more important than fancy formatting.

If you’re applying as a collective, include your collective CV and artist statement that outlines your history of work together and/or all members’ individual resumes into a single PDF.

Project Description

Next is project description. This is where you will describe your project, including what will occur, when it will take place and where it will take place. In your project description 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.

You want to include information or rationale for how you came to decide the What, When and Where of your project. For example, you could speak to why the dates you’ve chosen are the most feasible, how you came to decide the location or venue of your project, etc.

You might also touch on who is involved in this section, but there is dedicated space to speak more about who is impacted or involved in this project in the Community Connections section. This section should be a helpful, relatively detailed description of the project details, but keep in mind, you’ll have a chance to dig deeper into who, how and why in other sections of the application.

Artistic impact

In this section, you describe your artistic goals for this project and what success means for you. Consider how this project might impact your artistic work, practice or discipline.

Depending on your project, you might want to talk about artistic goals. that you have for the actual work itself, or around artistic processes, techniques or approaches that you’ll be utilizing. How does this work connect to the past you’ve done, or not? You might talk about professional development goals related to learning and growth within your artistic practice career. Are you continuing to build, hone or practice skills you currently already have? Is this a relatively new idea for you in terms of learning, knowledge, building and skill development?

You might talk about discipline-specific goals and impacts that the project may have on the artistic disciplines or artistic communities that you are a part of. What may this project be contributing to, building off of or exploring for the first time? How might it fit with an artistic discourse, a milieu, if relevant?

As you can see, there are many examples and types of artistic impact or growth, so be sure to tell assessors what is most important to you, and why, when it comes to this project. Consider how this project connects to your overall practice. You might ask yourself why this, and why now. How will this project allow you to achieve your artistic goals? How will you measure your success, learnings or impact? This is not about saying what you think the funder or assessors want to hear, but about defining what success means and looks for you. Think about what your artistic goals are, what you need to achieve them and how you will know if you’ve achieved them. It’s good to start thinking about this early on, developing your own systems of evaluation can be highly beneficial to personal artistic growth and development and guiding your practice into the future.

Community Connection

The specific questions you’ll be speaking to in this application are to describe the people or communities that are connected to this project and why you’ve chosen them, and what are your community-related goals for this project, and what will success mean for you?

There’s also a special note in the application that says, ‘If you’re the only person involved in the project at this stage, please speak to potential future connections or goals, and who you generally make your work for and why.’

Artists sometimes freeze at this question or overthink it, so I’ve added a definition of what we mean when we say community. We define community as ‘those who view, participate, collaborate, engage or benefit from your work.’ Depending on your project, this may include audiences, participants, students, artists, collaborators or partners, institutions or venues, mentors or teachers, neighborhoods or specific communities aligned around shared identity or goals. If you could refer to discipline-specific, geographical, religious or cultural communities, or communities that share a particular interest, value, aesthetic or curiosity with you.

So, as you can see, it can include many things, but it doesn’t have to include all of these things. It’s intentionally broad so that every artist can find a way to respond to this question, regardless of the context of their project. There is space to speak about how this project will impact your relationships, networks, or communities, either during or after the completion of your project. Your community-related goals can be about deepening or strengthening current relationships, forging or creating brand new relationships, or working towards future aspirational relationships later on.

Depending on your specific project, or the phase of the project you’re applying for, you may answer this question differently. Some projects may involve a lot of engagement and sharing with the public at this time, while others may only have a few collaborators or a mentor involved.

While others may be quite solitary at this point in time, all of the options are okay. We deeply value project that allows you to better connect with your communities in the future, just as much as we care about how a project might immediately involve, impact or engage communities.

For projects that involve actively working with, engaging or sharing with other people, this is where you describe those relationships and how they’ll be engaged or considered throughout the project, or why this project is important to them. The depth and quality of your relationships is just as important, if not more important, than the breadth or quantity of your relationships.

We don’t expect you to be everything to everyone, but we do want to see how you’re considering others in a thoughtful, respectful and informed way.

A reminder here that if your proposed project intends to make work about or for a specific community, It will be essential to speak directly about your current relationships and connections to said community. For example, are you a part of that community? If you aren’t, how are you engaging that community? Are you including, valuing, respecting those perspectives in a meaningful way? And are those involved being equitably compensated?

For projects that are perhaps more solitary and don’t engage or involve others, or that don’t have an element of sharing work publicly, this is where you might describe your general artistic relationship to different communities such as who you make your work for, how you consider them during the creation process, or how this project might impact your ability or capacity to better connect, share or build your relationships, audiences or sense of community in the future, like artistic impact, consider what your own measures of success might look like. Evaluating the successes of your relationships or your community goals must be meaningful to you and those involved.

While quantity and numbers can tell a meaningful story, it might also be interested in qualitative measures like audience response, feedback you receive from a workshop or a mentor, or the way you felt experimenting with a new form of engagement or sharing. Consider what feels most authentic and meaningful to you.

Project Timeline

Your project timeline, or projection plan, or project plan should clearly show the committee How you will accomplish your project in more detail than your project description This outlines all important artistic and community-related tasks, events, activities, milestones, deadlines or process periods Make sure you include the dates, locations, who’s 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.

Please make note of the things that are confirmed or pending where 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.

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 the feasibility, especially since not all of them may be familiar with your discipline or capacity, or your process and approach.

There is no standard template for this. You can use any format for your timelines, so long as it’s converted into a PDF format when you upload it.

Depending on your project, it might make sense to use a calendar format or a date-listed format. For example, a list of things you need to do each month or each week, or you might use some sort of chart or diagram. The most important thing about your timeline is that it’s clear, intuitive and easy to read.

The budget template is built directly into the grant application online. The budget will ask for a list of all relevant project expenses and a list of all relevant project revenues. You might only have one revenue item, which is the amount that you are requesting from this grant, or you may have other revenues contributing towards the cost of your activities.

Be sure to account for the entire scope of the project that you are applying for and make sure your budget tells the same story as your grant application, and there are no surprise expenses that don’t align with your activities and timeline.

Our advice for approaching budget is to first consider what category your project might fall within the general range of the grant program, and budget for what you realistically need to complete the activity. Start by imagining how the activity would run ideally, and then build your budget off that rather than starting at the maximum amount available and building a budget backwards.

If you add all your true estimated expenses up, and you go over the maximum amount that you’re able to request in this grant, then you might reconsider the scale or scope of your proposed activities, and look for where you can reduce costs or break your plan out into phases, or, you can think about the other funding sources and revenues to supplement your overall budget. It could include other grants, sponsorships, donations, in-kind support, personal contributions, earned revenues like ticket sales if that applies.

Grants are just one option for supporting your project and its costs. If you have other revenue, you can include them as well and indicate if they are confirmed or pending at the time of applying.

Your budget should balance to zero so that it is clear how all project expenses are being covered.

As you enter dollar amounts into the template, it will automatically do the math for you. Each line item in your budget has a Notes section, and I strongly recommend using it to give additional information about each expense or revenue item, including a description of what it is or what it includes, and any helpful calculations, breakdowns or context for how you got to that number.

Assessors will be reviewing your budget to determine if all your expenses appear to be eligible based on the program guidelines, so make sure you are only requesting costs that are required to access and undertake eligible project activities, and that you are being clear and detailed about each expense item. For example, indicate if something is purchased or rented.

If you’re outlining fees for different artists or other professionals, include their names, roles, and a breakdown of their payment. Indicate if it’s a flat rate, an hourly rate or weekly rate, quote, or if it’s based on a standard fee schedule, like CARFAC artist fees.

If you request subsistence, indicate what it includes. For example, rent, food, utilities or childcare.

The time period it was covering, which could be two months while you’re actively creating work in your studio, and how you calculated it. It could be $2,000 per month for two months, which would total $4,000. This abides by the $3,000 a month per person maximum for subsistence.

Assessors often wish budgets had more clarity and detail provided, so don’t leave room for questions or confusion here. Try to be clear and specific about every line item in your budget.

Support Material

There will be one support material area in the application. There are options to include PDFs, images, videos, audio files, etc. Feel free to combine multiple PDFs into one upload area.

You can also include a description to briefly describe what you’ve included or why, if needed.

You can upload any budget-related material, letters of support and confirmation, or documentation of past work that will be helpful to back up support or demonstrate the feasibility of your project, and project planning and budget details. For example, you might include research costs and screenshots of quotes, invoices, standard fee schedules or correspondence that confirms rates and past examples of revenue.

For expenses like subsistence, you do not need to upload a PDF of your utility bill or mortgage as proof of your monthly living costs, and you don’t need to get super granular as in compiling screenshots of every canvas, or every tube of paint you’ll purchase. Those things can simply be described within the budget notes with a description and calculation, if needed.

You might consider including things that demonstrate the quality of your artistic work, such as samples of work, documentation of previous projects, information about your artistic process or background on your specific discipline.

You might also include something to demonstrate your capacity to undertake the work such as previous examples of work, planning documents, support letters, mock-ups or drafts of the project.

You might include demonstration of your research and planning around the project, such as research findings, contracts, letters of confirmation or more detailed planning documents.

You might also include things that demonstrate the partnerships or relationships you have that are related to the project. Whether it be the CVs or bios of your collaborators, a letter of support from someone involved, confirmations or correspondence that shows a commitment or interest.

The material you include should be relevant and meaningful to your application.

I will say, assessors always appreciate seeing examples of your past or current work, so please try to include that specifically.

Lastly, please be considerate of the committee’s time. Assessors will only be asked to review up to 10 minutes of support material for each applicant, as they are reviewing many applications. Direct their attention to the most important elements of what you’re sharing. For example, if a long video is included, direct assessors to the most important three minutes to view, or if you’re a writer and you want to include a sample of your script, don’t include the entire thing, just include an important excerpt of the script.

Peer Assessment

Assessment committees are chosen to represent the broad diversity of Calgary and its artistic communities, including, but not limited to: Artistic discipline, gender, sexuality, age, religion, beliefs, nation, physical and neurological identities.

The volume of applications received will determine the number and size of committees required to assess the full program. We pay assessors and honorarium to serve on any of our committees. This honorarium is outlined in the Assessor Terms of Reference which are linked within the guidelines.

I would encourage you to read those terms to understand the responsibilities and expectations that assessors are asked to commit to.

Assessors are kept confidential and anonymous until next year, when a full list of assessors is posted as part of our annual report.

Assessors are required to declare conflicts of interest according to the Conflict of Interest Policy, which means that they will not evaluate applications where there is a real or perceived conflict.

Peer assessment committees help ensure that we fairly and responsibly distribute public dollars to artists on behalf of the citizens of Calgary.

To become an assessor, the membership of the peer committees are chosen through public nominations and staff expertise. If you or anyone you know is interested in assessing any of our programs, there is a nomination form on our website.

Program Considerations and Scoring

All projects will be evaluated and funded based on these three considerations, or criteria: The first is artistic impact, second, community connection, and third, 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.

Artistic impact.

The applicant shows a clear and in-depth understanding of their artistic practice, artistic goals and what success will mean for them. How the assessors understand what artistic impact means and how you are meeting this program consideration is based on what you tell us about what is important to you and your practice, what your goals are and how this project will allow you to achieve them. Ensure that you’ve provided enough information and context to the assessors to draw these connections.

It might seem obvious to you, but if you can provide rationale and context, it helps fill in the gaps so that assessors don’t need to guess or make assumptions.

You should be honest and show an awareness of where you are in your practice and career, where and how you fit, or even how you don’t fit into your artistic community or disciplines and what artistic quality, growth or success mean for you. Being able to recognize the challenges or barriers you face as an artist can in fact help you demonstrate potential, thoughtfulness and intentionality about the way you undertake your work. It creates an opportunity to see how an investment in your practice might, in fact, leverage you into finding solutions to those challenges.

While it can be tempting to only paint a rosy picture to funders and assessors in a grant application, actually demonstrating that you’ve taken in the time to think and reflect on how you undertake your work or challenge your own assumptions, shows the committee how you are well set up to steward a public investment in an effective way.

As you saw, there’s a specific section in the application where you will speak directly about artistic impact, but please keep in mind that assessors will be considering your application holistically, meaning that there may be other parts of the application that speak to the artistic impact more indirectly, such as your artist statement, your CV, support material and/or your examples of work.

Community Connection

The applicant shows a clear and in-depth understanding of the relationship and communities connected to this project, their community-related goals and what success will mean for them. This can include future relationships and community connections, as well as those occurring during the project itself.

While we know that many artistic practices and projects may not necessarily put a primary focus on community engagement or relationships, we want to open a conversation for every applicant to say why that community means to them, and how they think their art contributes to that community, whether it be directly or indirectly, during the project or afterwards.

It’s important to reflect on who your communities and relationships are, or who you would like them to be, how you might either connect or engage, or simply consider them during this project or a phase of project.

Defining your communities will allow you to better understand what it means to have an impactful relationship with them. Reflect on why your project is important and to those you’ve identified, whether they’ll be experiencing the work now or later. If the project doesn’t involve creating or sharing work at all, then how does the project support or impact your ability to deepen or grow your relationship and connections to your communities in the future? Again, consider this program consideration holistically in your application as well.

This consideration may also be supported through your CV or your support material or sections in the application.

Planning

The applicant has included enough information to clearly show what they want to do and how they will do it. There is an in-depth understanding of what it will take to carry out the project and meet their goals. This is demonstrated by a clear, achievable and well-supported application. For example, the applicant has enough relevant experience and or necessary support in place, and a feasible timeline and budget with suitable partners, collaborators or mentors.

While the application is considered holistically, the primary element that will relate to this program consideration are your project description, budget, timeline and some of your support material.

These planning pieces should clearly outline who you will work with and why, and how you will work with them, what it will cost and how much time it will take, and what tasks and activities are required to meet your goals. You want to show your project is achievable, is well researched and well-supported, especially when it comes to ensuring that those involved are well considered and taken care of within the planning elements. That includes yourself.

The application should have clear, detailed and thoughtful responses, and includes all relevant information required to create overwhelming trust and confidence the project will be completed as described, and the applicant will reach their goals. They (assessment committee) shouldn’t be left with lots of questions, confusion or doubt. They should feel that there is a clear sense of readiness and critical awareness within your application. I recommend keeping all of these program considerations in your mind throughout the process of writing.

How are Grants Awarded?

The total pool of funding available for the program this year is $3.1 million. Assessment committees are responsible for reviewing and scoring applications assigned to their committee online according to the three program considerations. Committees will 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 processes 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 based on average total scores. Partial funding may be allocated by primarily only if there are ineligible expenses within a project budget, or if a majority of the committee recommended less for a specific reason. For example, if there isn’t a clear or strong case made for a particular expense or activity, or, if there’s no more funding left in the available pool to fund the final project to its full request.

That said, we do our best to avoid hamstringing artists with partial funding, and we will let you know the reasoning why a partial amount is being awarded, if so.

In the final 10 per cent of funding, if there are applications that are tied, but not enough funds in the grant budget to support all tied applications, priority may be given based on the following considerations:

• We prioritize projects from artists who have not received a Calgary Arts Development grant before, or within the last two years, if needed, to break a tie.
• Projects proposed by artists belonging to an equity priority group, or in the case of a collective, where the majority of artists are from an equity party group, which I will briefly review on the next slide.

How do we determine who is an equity priority group?

Included in the grant application is a voluntary self-identification form which includes optional questions based on Equity Priority Groups that Calgary Arts Development has identified.

These equity priority groups include: Indigenous, Black, persons of colour, D/deaf persons, persons with disabilities, persons living with mental illness and 2SLGBTQIAP+ individuals. For details, please refer to the Equity Priority Group‘s description in the application and Guidelines.

Applicants will be invited to fill out a voluntary self-identification form directly in the grant application, however, all questions are optional. Applicants that self-identify as belonging to one or more of these equity priority groups are automatically considered for this tie-breaking equity measure if it arises.

Responses to these voluntary self-identification questions are not visible to assessors. Access to this information is limited to the research team and grant program staff at CADA.

Information collected in this section will also help us track who is applying, identify gaps and ensure that grants are awarded in an equitable manner and will only ever be shared in aggregate.

What is the purpose of Equity Priority Groups?

As we shared earlier, CADA acknowledges that there are many barriers to access and full participation in our society, sector and in granting, which have historically disadvantaged some groups over others.

In order to help address underserved communities who have experienced barriers to funding and access to opportunities in our sector, we’ve identified these priority groups and adopted this specific equity measure.

Equity priority groups, processes, policies and measures will continue to change and be adapted as needed based on an ongoing evaluation, community engagement and feedback.

Grant Tips

Here are some general grant tips. Read and follow directions in the application form itself. For example, if it says to include only specific file types, or only upload a certain file size, or if it indicates what kind of support material to include or direct for you to break down your budget calculations. Remember that you are not expected to be everything to everyone, and your application will not benefit from trying to write or represent yourself in a way that you think assessors might want to see.

Using plain language rather than academic language or artists speak is often clearer and more concise. Before jargon or technical language, remembering that assessment committee members will be made up of people from many different places, practices and experiences. Don’t assume that they will understand your specific, practice or language.

If you are speaking about something that is unique to your discipline and practice, be sure to define it. Assessors really appreciate being able to easily understand and read an application, since they are reading so many.

It can be very tempting to paint a rosy picture of your practice, but having an appreciative sense of what challenges and barriers you might experience in your work, and how you might move through them actually demonstrates capacity, awareness and potential.

Do your research. Make sure that you can back up what you are stating in your application. It can be helpful using the phrase of questions directly in your answer to make sure you are answering each question fully and not missing anything.

Be sure to do a last edit or read-over and test your links and uploads to ensure they are correct and working before submitting.

It is also really helpful to have someone who may not be familiar with your discipline, or your work, to read your application. The questions they may ask may uncover gaps or assumptions you are making in the story you are telling.

It can also be useful to have someone very well-versed in a particular discipline, or who has previous experience look for any red flags or gaps in your planning, budgeting. I suggest leaning on friends, family, or peers if you can, and remember to ask questions early on.

Successful applicants receive an automated notification through the online grant platform with instructions on how to accept their grant and receive funding.

This includes reviewing, signing and returning a grant investment agreement, which is a contract between CADA and the grantee, which outlines the terms and conditions of receiving a grant.

It is important to consider the tax implications of receiving a grant. If you receive a grant from Calgary Arts Development, we are required to issue a T4A tax form for the full grant amount in the calendar year that you receive payment.

When filing your taxes, you may deduct all reasonable grant expenses related to the project or activity from the total grant amount. In order to show the amounts of the grant that were spent out, you must track all your expenses. Keep receipts, invoices, contracts, and proofs of payment so that you can properly deduct from these expenses. The CRA may request these things if you are audited.

Some expenses, such as subsistence, may not be considered deductible by the CRA, and applicants may be required to pay income tax on any amount of the grant that could be considered income or non-deductible.

Our FAQ has some information and resources about artist grants and taxes. However, Calgary Arts Development does not offer tax service or advice. We highly recommend that you consult a tax professional or accountant when planning your grant applications and preparing your taxes each year. Successful grantees will be required to complete a brief final report to share an update on their completed activities, learnings and how the grant benefited their practice, along with an updated budget with actual costs.

Final reports are due within 60 days of the stated project end date in your application.

You can sign up for our weekly newsletter to get the most up-to-date news and information from Calgary Arts Development. Learn more about our funding opportunities, public art, and discover artists who are making our city a better place and more.

Thank you so much for listening. If you have any more questions that come up after today as you’re working on your applications, please consider signing up and attending one of the virtual open offices in the next couple months. These are great open spaces to pop in and ask your questions or hang out and hear what other artists are asking as well. That said, staff are also available to answer questions as needed.

Any requests for feedback will be managed in the order in which we receive them, and a reminder that we will not guarantee you feedback unless you’ve reached out at least 10 business days before the deadline, which would be April 29, 2026. We cannot promise feedback after that date, but we will try our best to respond to questions over the phone or email up until the day of the deadline, so try to reach out for support early. Thank you so much for listening.