Project Assistance: Community Arts Festivals Program 2025 (Canada)

Project Assistance: Community Arts Festivals supports the artistic development of local, community-based arts festivals by providing funding for fees paid to B.C. or Canadian professional artists and technicians and Elders or Knowledge Keepers engaged in the festival.

Funding Information

• Maximum request amount is $6,000.

Eligible Activities

• Examples of eligible festival activities include but are not limited to:
  • A community arts council presenting a three-day arts focused festival that has arts programming scheduled over all three days, including performances, workshops, and exhibitions, where professional artists are being paid to perform, teach, and show or demonstrate their work.
  • An Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) Government or community organization offering a powwow over a two-day period that pays artists and performers.
  • A small-scale community-driven literary arts festival that is primarily co-ordinated and programmed by volunteers who have a passion for books and writing, which pays authors to attend and present their works to the general public.
  • A community-based, non-professional film organization offering a film festival that has a week of film screenings and artist talks from professional and amateur film makers who are connected to that community or focused on a thematic interest and are paid to present and discuss their film.

Ineligible Activities

• Examples of festival activities that are not eligible for support in this program:
  • A professional arts organization offering an ongoing multi-day festival, projects embedded within ongoing multi-day festivals, and other activities eligible within the Professional Arts Festivals program.
  • A community art club holding an art exhibition and sale.
  • A community performing arts organization offering a concert or performance on one day, or over consecutive days.
  • An arts council offering a weekly series of performances over the summer.
  • An arts training or professional development program where the primary focus is workshops or classes focused on skills development, with an exhibition or performances at the end of the training.
  • Community festivals where the arts are not the primary focus or purpose of the festival.
  • Projects or activities where there is no engagement with professional artists, technicians, Elders, or Knowledge Keepers, and there is no set payment of fair compensation for their participation in the arts festival programming.

Eligibility Criteria

• A Community Arts Organization, registered and in good standing as a non-profit society or community service co-op in B.C. for at least one fiscal year prior to application with:
  • The majority of staff and board members based in B.C.
  • Creative control and decision making for programming and engagement primarily maintained within the organization and by leadership based in B.C.
  • A purpose or mandate dedicated to arts and culture programming and activities.
  • A purpose or mandate to provide services to the arts and culture sector in B.C.
  • Operations and activities that reflect this dedicated purpose or mandate.
  • Community arts councils
  • Community driven, generally non-professional, volunteer-managed arts, and culture organizations or
  • Community-based arts and cultural centres, whose primary purpose is community-centered engagement and access to the arts.
  • An Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) community organization registered and in good standing as a non-profit society or community service co-op in B.C. for at least one fiscal year prior to application with:
    • The majority of staff and board members based in B.C.; and
    • A commitment to offering regular arts and culture activities.
  • An Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) government in B.C. that offers regular arts and culture activities.

Ineligibility Criteria

• The following organizations are not eligible to apply for this grant:
  • Arts and culture organizations currently eligible for, or receiving, grants through BC Arts Council programs that serve professional organizations, including (but not limited to): Project Assistance: Professional Arts Festivals, Project Assistance: Museums and Indigenous Cultural Centers, Project Assistance for Performing, Visual or Media Arts Organizations.
  • Cultural organizations without a specific arts purpose or established arts programming.
  • Industrial sites, archaeological sites, heritage sites, or historic places.
  • Organizations dedicated to archives.
  • Community choirs that are attached to, or affiliated with, educational, religious, or military institutions.
  • Community service non-profit organizations that do not have arts and culture as their primary purpose and where the majority of their programming/activities are not arts-centred, even if they offer some arts programming or activities.
  • Private or for-profit entities.
  • Social service organizations.
  • Member-funded societies.
  • Educational institutions.
  • Local governments.

For more information, visit BC Arts Council.