ORGANIZATIONS MUST:

• Be a non-profit organization with a primary arts mandate; 
• Have both its legal address and a majority of its board members reside in the City of Edmonton, or in one of the Indigenous communities of Enoch Cree Nation, Alexander First Nation, Paul First Nation and Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation; 
• Have an up-to-date organization profile in the Edmonton Art’s Council online portal, SmartSimple; 
• Not be in arrears with the City of Edmonton or overdue in submitting a report to the Edmonton Arts Council. 

ELIGIBLE PROJECTS MUST:

• Be relevant to the organization’s mission or mandate; 
• Have a defined start date (after the application deadline) and end date; 
• Be a new initiative that contributes to Actions in the Connections & Exchanges plan;
• Meet one or more of the following EAC funding strategy priorities:
  • Demonstrated commitment to the fair and professional payment of Edmonton artists and arts workers; 
    
  • Effective pursuit of their primary mandate(s) to support, engage, produce or present work by and for Indigenous communities and/​or equity-deserving groups; 
    
  • Provision of accessible or low-cost public programming to a wide range of Edmontonians; 
    
  • Effective operational management of Edmonton arts facilities that are accessible and available for the use of multiple artists, audiences, and communities.

WHAT IS A GOOD FIT

Projects must be new initiatives, rather than a continuation, advancement or expansion of an existing program, project or planned activity for the organization. 

Connections & Exchanges contains 55 Actions contributing to the implementation of the plan. In addition to meeting the EAC funding strategy priorities, the EAC has identified Actions in Connections & Exchanges suited to activation by the arts community. These Actions include but are not limited to:

2.1 Engage with organizations that support community-based artistic programming and cultural expression and engage youth through local arts and learning activities. 

4.1 Work with public and private partners, arts organizations and festivals to improve access by: Piloting ticketing and transportation programs to diversify audiences; Expanding arts experiences for young people; Supporting partnerships with culturally-specific media to engage newcomers; Supporting partnerships with cultural associations, and human and social services. 

6.1 Work with City Administration, cultural agencies, post-secondary institutions and businesses to develop incubation hubs for interdisciplinary and cross-sector artistic creation, production and presentation. 

6.2 Work with arts venues to improve affordability for artists and organizations to support production and presentation. 

6.3 Convene the arts community to share expertise, promote collaboration and networking. 

8.1 Dissemination and artistic exchange of work through tours, exhibitions and digital technologies. 

Examples of projects that might fit within the Connections & Exchanges Initiatives Program: 

• An organization supports a tour of landscape themed paintings by local visual artists to various small cities in Alberta (Action 8.1).
• A performing arts organization pilots a program to offer discounted youth pricing and memberships (Action 4.1).
• A group of arts organizations across disciplines come together to form a networking and professional development community with a common cause (Action 6.3).
• An arts venue offers rehearsal space for emerging artist collectives representing equity-deserving communities, to improve access to affordable arts space (Action 6.2).
• Two Edmonton-based organizations of different disciplines take an already create multidisciplinary work featuring Edmonton artists on tour to central Canada for a week (Action 8.1).

WHAT IS NOT SUPPORTED

This funding opportunity is NOT intended to support: 

• Spending on capital campaigns or capital projects; 
• Activity already included in the organization’s planned activities; 
• Activity that is already supported by the City of Edmonton; 
• Any expenses paid before the application deadline; 
• Activity that is not of benefit to the City of Edmonton, its artists and arts workers, or broader community. 

The deadline for submissions is May 1 by 11:59 AM.
Please note, the deadline is now 11:59 AM (noon). Late applications, or those that do not include all required information, will be considered incomplete and will not be assessed.

Apply through the EAC’s online portal SmartSimple:

Complete (or update) an organization profile in the online portal: eac​.smart​sim​ple​.ca.

Once a profile has been submitted, the Connections & Exchanges Initiatives application form is made available in SmartSimple under the​“Open Opportunities” icon. The Connections & Exchanges Initiatives application will be available at least 30 days before the application deadline. 

ASSESSMENT PROCESS

Once a Connections & Exchanges Initiatives application is submitted, EAC staff will internally review the application to determine eligibility of the organization and project, as described above. Any applications deemed ineligible will not move forward to assessment, and organizations will be notified.

A peer assessment panel will provide context and recommendations to the EAC. 

Decisions made through this process are final. 

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Assessment will be based on all the text in these guidelines, and on: 

• The artistic merit of the project; 
• The feasibility of the project plan, timeline, and budget; 
• The impact on the artists involved, the arts discipline, anticipated audiences, and the community; 
• The alignment with the goals of the Connections & Exchanges Plan.

REPORTING

Organizations that receive funding will be required to report on the project that they undertook. Applicants are expected to assess the outcomes of the project with respect to the goals articulated in their application, and to report the actual spending. Reports are completed in the SmartSimple portal and will be available after the project end date listed in the application. 

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs)

Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to both your organization and the goal of your specific initiative is an important step. Make sure that your measures are within the capacity of your organization to monitor and track, can be completed in a timely and consistent manner, and directly reflect the change you want to see in your organization.

For example, if you are seeking to improve volunteer satisfaction, then measuring the number of new volunteers each month may not be relevant, but volunteer retention might be.

Here are some links that may provide useful insights in the development and monitoring of KPIs:

• Video on using KPIs in donation campaigns
• Twelve Examples of KPIs in a nonprofit context
• Choosing the right KPIs
• Track Your KPIs

DRAFT APPLICATION ASSISTANCE

The EAC offers an opportunity for organizations to have their draft application reviewed before the deadline. The review process could include: 

• Clarifying the intentions of the project, in alignment with the Connections & Exchanges 10-year plan. 
• Help to clarify a project’s outcomes or goals in relationship with the organization’s programming/​planning.
• Reviewing budget and support materials.

If the organization would like someone to review a draft application, please email no later than 5 business days before the application deadline. Requests for review made after this time may not receive a response. 

Email us for assistance at grants@​edmontonarts.​ca

GENERAL

• A project title;
• A short project description (30 words);
• Project start and end date;
• Grant amount requested (up to $25,000).

*Project start date must be after the application deadline.

SMARTSIMPLE PROFILE INFORMATION

This information will be directly imported into the application from the organization’s profile in SmartSimple. Please ensure that the organization’s profile is up-to-date and submitted before completing your application. 

• Organization’s operating or event name – the name that an organization uses in public communications, if different than the legal name; 
• Organization’s primary and secondary discipline – the main artistic disciplines in which the organization has the most experience and focus. These may be different than the main artistic disciplines (s) of this application; 
• Organization’s purpose and mission – purpose of organization as defined in your mission, mandate goals or other strategic statements; 
• Organization Board of Directors; 
  
• Organization Financial Statements; 
• Organization’s minutes from its Annual General Meeting; 
• Organization’s social media and/​or web links – these links are used by the assessors as additional information on the organization’s work. 

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

• Grant amount requested (up to $25,000);
• Project primary discipline (drop down menu); 
• Project secondary discipline (check all that apply); 
• Describe what the organization wants to achieve through this project (250 words); 
• Provide a project plan, including a clear timeline (250 words); 
• List the artists and/​or arts professionals to be contracted for the project, and their fees and wages; 
• List the ways in which the public can be involved with this project (if any), and the cost of doing so; 
• If this project makes use of a space that the organization owns or leases, describe the use of this space; 
• Other information not already shared. 

IMPACTS

• Key Performance Indicators – identify at least two ways in which the organization plans to measure the success of the project. Include information on how it plans to measure these results, and what it predicts the outcome to be. 
• What are the anticipated benefits of the project with respect to the organization’s mission, mandate, activities and/​or strategic goals? (250 words) 
• Keeping in mind that the EAC looks at a project’s impact on artistic practice, participating artists/​arts workers, audiences and community, what does the organization anticipate the impacts of this project to be? (250 words)

BUDGET

A balanced budget that shows:

• Revenues (including the amount requested in this grant application); 
• Expenses;
• This information will be entered directly into the online form. Use the​“notes” section of each line to identify or explain each revenue and expense. 

If the budget incorporates in-kind expenses and revenues, they should be labelled as such and must be entered in both the revenue and expense sides of your budget. Up to 10% of the total grant amount may be requested for overhead costs in support of the project. An organization may request up to $25,000 in support through this program. 

Please also upload budget supporting documents (PDF), including but not limited to: 

• Quotations from suppliers; 
• Standard fee schedules; 
• Correspondence that confirms rates; 
• Confirmation of other grants or funding support of the project. 

Do not upload a spreadsheet of your complete budget – this must be filled in through the table in the application form. 

SUPPORTING MATERIAL

Organizations may upload up to 10 audio/​visual/​PDF files and up to 5 direct links to external websites related to your proposed project. Assessors are encouraged to spend no more than 10 minutes taking in support materials. 

These may include samples of the organization’s artistic work, but may also be letters of support, reviews, interviews, etc. 

For each supporting material uploaded, you are required to provide a description of the material which could include creation date, medium, location, names of artists, etc. 

Uploaded video or audio files should be less than 2GB in size. Uploads are preferred to links whenever possible, so that access for assessors is as simple as possible.

Links must be direct and public. These links should go directly to the support material specified, rather than to a landing page or home page requiring further navigation by assessors. 

Please do not submit images as PDF files. Directly upload images in JPEG or PNG format.