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CULTIVATE

Cultivate Grant Overview

Outcomes: Strategic Innovation Fund
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·      A diversity of individuals, groups, and organizations
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have resources and opportunities to develop new skills, knowledge, and innovation capacity.
· A diversity of individuals, groups, and organizations adapt to new and innovative ways of working.
· A diversity of individuals, groups, and organizations leverage strategic thinking and technology to develop new and innovative ways of working.
· Building digital capacity of arts groups and organizations that serve Indigenous, Northern, official language minority, and historically underserved and marginalized communities is supported.
Overview
The five-year
Strategic Innovation Fund
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aims to strengthen and transform the arts sector. The Fund supports rebuilding and transformation projects and partnerships that contribute to a more resilient, sustainable, connected, accessible, and equitable arts sector.
The Fund includes three main components to help seed, cultivate and grow your idea:
· Seed provides seed funding to kickstart small-scale innovation activities that explore and develop capacity, partnerships, and promising innovation ideas
· Cultivate provides project grants to implement, pilot and protype innovation projects that address systemic issues and benefit the broader arts sector
· Grow provides multi-year support for a limited number of longer-term, collaborative initiatives that propose sustainable solutions to sectoral or cross-sectoral issues and demonstrate strong potential to be scaled up for regional, national or international impact.
These components are designed to accompany Canadian individuals, groups, and organizations at different stages of innovation readiness, from capacity building to exploration to prototyping to full implementation. The Fund supports both small-scale activities with short timelines and longer-term complex initiatives.
The following guidelines are for the Cultivate component, which provides project grants to implement, pilot and protype innovation projects that address systemic issues and benefit the broader arts sector.
You may be eligible for
Application Assistance
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to pay someone to help you with the application process if you are experiencing difficulty and self-identify as:
an applicant who is Deaf, hard of hearing, has a disability or is living with a mental illness
a First Nations, Inuit or Métis applicant facing language, geographic and/or cultural barriers.
Grant type –
project
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Deadline(s) and notification of results – consult the
Deadlines and Notifications of Results
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page
Grant amount – up to $250 000
Application limits
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·       You can apply to this component twice per year (1 March – 28/29 February) for distinct projects with different activities.  
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· Applications to this component do not count towards the maximum number of applications that can be submitted to the Canada Council each year (from 1 March – 28/29 February).
I want to apply – What else do I need to know?
If you have not already done so, you must register in the
portal
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before you apply. Please note that profile validation can take up to 15 business days.
Applicants - Who can apply?
Types of eligible applicants to this component include:
· artists and arts professionals
· cultural connectors
· artistic groups and collectives
· artistic organizations
· First Nations, Inuit and Métis artists, arts/cultural professionals, cultural carriers, groups, collectives, and organizations
Organizations presently receiving core grants are eligible to apply to this initiative.
Your eligibility to apply is determined by the validated profile created in the Canada Council portal.
Targeted funding will be in place to ensure equitable support for applicants who have self-identified using the checkboxes in the Council’s portal as belonging to one of the Council’s designated priority groups, which include applicants from culturally diverse, Deaf and disability, official language minority, and Indigenous communities.
In addition to the Council’s designated priority groups, we also encourage applications from youth (18 to 35) and other historically underserved and marginalized communities, including 2SLGBTQ and gender-diverse communities, women, and artists at intersections of multiple identities.
Activities - What can I apply for?
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This component provides support for future-oriented innovation projects that address systemic issues in the arts sector and help rebuild a more resilient, sustainable, equitable, accessible, greener, healthier, and connected arts sector.  
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This component only supports collaborative projects that are undertaken in partnership with more than one organization, collective or group of artists. To be eligible, projects must stretch beyond a personal gain or benefit to you, your group or organization and be able to demonstrate potential impact for the broader arts sector or a broader target community. Partnerships are not limited to the arts sector and we encourage cross sectoral collaborations with shared investment for shared benefit.
Proposed projects should explore a concrete solution to a clearly identified problem. This component supports all phases of project development and implementation, but your project must include a piloting, prototyping, testing and/or implementation phase.
Eligible activities are the research, planning, development, testing, piloting, prototyping, sharing and/or implementation of projects that respond to one or more of the following key strategic areas:
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Strengthening the resilience and sustainability of the arts sector, including new business and revenue models
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Advancing social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts
Increasing the accessibility of arts and culture for people who are Deaf or have disabilities
Decolonizing the arts sector
Creating a greener arts sector
Stimulating the digital transformation of the arts sector
Improving the health, wellbeing, and financial security of artists and arts professionals
Building networks and partnerships to strengthen the arts ecosystem and the role of arts in society
Amplifying the benefit of the arts for thriving communities.
Ineligible activities
· Regular and ongoing operating activities
The Strategic Innovation Fund is not designed to support artistic innovation. Projects that primarily focus on creating, producing, programming or presenting artistic work should seek support through the Council’s regular funding programs. Costs related to content creation, artistic creation and media production are subject to limits.
You cannot apply for activities that occur before the deadline, those that receive funding from another Canada Council program or those on the 
general list of ineligible activities
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.
The Council is investing an additional $25 million for sector innovation as part of the
Recovery Fund for Arts, Culture, Heritage and Sport Sectors
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. You may only receive Recovery Funding for the same activities from 1 participating department or Agency (Canadian Heritage, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Canada’s regional development agencies, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Media Fund, or Telefilm Canada).
When determining your project start date, individuals should be aware that according to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), expenses incurred in the year immediately before a grant is received are only deductible from the grant if they are incurred after the artist has received notification that the grant will be paid. For more information about income taxes and your grant, please refer to our
website
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.
Expenses – What is eligible?
Up to 100% of eligible costs
Expenses directly related to the project activities, including, but not limited to:
· honoraria and fees paid to artists, experts, trainers, facilitators, project managers, consultants, elders, and community leaders directly involved in carrying out your project
· travel, accommodation and per diem costs
· software licensing fees
· equipment rental costs
· research expenses, including purchase of data sets and impact measurement
· public accessibility costs, for example, sign language interpretation, captioning, audio description, etc.
· costs of sharing results and transferring acquired knowledge to the community
· other costs directly related to carrying out your project (must be justified)
The following expenses are also eligible, but subject to certain limits:
· administrative costs cannot exceed 15% of the total grant awarded
· equipment and software purchase costs cannot exceed 15% of the total grant awarded. For more information about
capital expenditures
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, consult our glossary
· fees and costs related to content creation, artistic creation and media production cannot exceed 15% of the total grant awarded.
Ineligible expenses
Expenses that are not directly related to carrying out the proposed project are not eligible, including (but not limited to):
· ongoing operating expenses
· deficit reduction costs
· purchase of furniture or general office equipment
· capital construction or renovation costs
· expenses incurred prior to the deadline date
· expenses for which funding has already been granted by the Canada Council.
Assessment - How are decisions made?
If eligible, your application will be assessed, based on the weighted criteria below, by a cross sectoral assessment committee with relevant expertise. Your application must receive a minimum score in each category to be considered for a grant.
Applications will be assessed on the following weighted criteria:
Impact 50% (minimum score of 35 out of 50)
· The project aims for concrete results and significant expected benefits
· The project benefits more than one artist or organization and, ideally, an entire community or arts sector
· There is a plan to share knowledge and results in relevant and appropriate ways
Relevance 30% (minimum score of 15 out of 30)
· The project has clearly articulated sectoral challenges or opportunities
· The objectives of the project are aligned with the key strategic areas of the fund
· The proposed activities are relevant, suitable, and consistent with the project’s objectives
· The contributing partner(s) are well matched and pertinent
Feasibility 20% (minimum score of 10 out of 20)
· The lead applicant, the applicant’s partner(s) and the implementation team members have the experience and expertise needed to successfully carry out the project
· The budget is reasonable, the workplan is realistic and aligned with the project’s objectives
· The governance set up to carry out the initiative is effective, with aligned and complementary partner(s) and collaborators
Accessibility, equity, diversity, social justice, and decolonization (if applicable to the project)
If your proposed project addresses challenges and gaps related to accessibility, equity, diversity, social justice, and decolonization, you must demonstrate that:
· appropriate cultural protocols for the community/communities involved are being observed
· you have the active participation, collaboration, involvement, and empowerment of the specific community/ communities impacted by the project
If your response to this criterion is not satisfactory, your application may be deemed unsuccessful.
Required information and support material - What you need to apply
Required – When applying, you must provide the following:
description of your project and what you hope to achieve
description of the potential beneficiaries
description of relevant past experience, if any
list of the partner(s) involved
letter(s) of engagement from partner(s)
budget including budget notes
list of confirmed key team members and their roles (budget appendix)
· detailed work plan, including timeline
Optional – You may also submit as support material
· executive summaries of relevant studies or research
Note: The maximum number of pages for support material is 10 pages in total for letters of engagement and 3 pages in total for executive summaries of reports.
Grant payment and final reports
If your application is successful, the first step in receiving your grant payment is to complete the Grant Acceptance Form. Click
here
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for more information on the responsibilities of grant recipients.
If your application is successful, your response to question 1.6 in the application form (Brief description of the proposed initiative) will be included in the Council’s public announcement of results.
A final report will be due 3 months after you complete the project.
Contact information
If you require additional information or guidance, contact
innovationfund@canadacouncil.ca
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before submitting your application.


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