Peterborough Arts Alive Fund: Strategic Recovery & Resilience Grants

 

The Peterborough Arts Alive Fund has awarded $104,500 in grants to 15 local arts organizations. See the full list of grantees, and the media release for more information.

Program Information and Application Guidelines (ARCHIVED)

Please note: the Peterborough Arts Alive Fund is no longer accepting applications.

The Peterborough Arts Alive Fund provides grants to local charitable arts organizations working in any discipline and in any capacity to assist them to effectively manage the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, respond creatively to the current situation, and prepare for safe and robust reopening when they can.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants must meet all requirements in order to apply:

  • Registered charities operating within the City of Peterborough, County of Peterborough, Hiawatha First Nation, or Curve Lake First Nation are eligible to apply for a Peterborough Arts Alive Grant.
  • Status as a “qualified donee’’ in good standing will be verified through the CRA website as part of the application process. A 'donee' is the organization receiving the grant.
  • Priority will be given to professional arts organizations that support artistic work in any discipline and are led by paid, qualified professional personnel, and governed by a board of directors.
  • Organizations must have been in operation since at least May 1, 2019, and must commit to resuming activities as soon as COVID-19 public health restrictions are lifted.
  • Organizations must have carried on at least some activities during the pandemic period (March 2020 to now).
  • Organizations that are not qualified donees must work with a sponsoring charity and complete a "Fiscal Sponsorship Agreement." Please contact the Community Foundation to ask for a form (jennifer.debues@cfgp.ca). If your application is successful, the sponsoring organization will receive the grant.
  • Grant recipients must commit to completing funded activities and expenditures between the date that the grant is approved and December 31, 2021. They will be required to submit a one-page report documenting the progress of the project.
  • Organizations may only submit one grant application for themselves, however, organizations may apply for their own grant as well as be part of partnership or collaborative projects as long as there is no duplication of activities or eligible costs/expenses.
  • Grants will range from $1,500 to $10,000 and will provide financial support for COVID-19 pandemic recovery and resiliency needs/expenses.

Qualified Donee Status

Registered charities operating within the City of Peterborough, County of Peterborough, Hiawatha First Nation, or Curve Lake First Nation are eligible to apply for a Peterborough Arts Alive Grant. Status as a “qualified donee’’ in good standing will be verified through CRA as part of the application process. Organizations that are not qualified donees must work with a sponsoring charity and complete a fiscal sponsorship agreement. Please contact the Community Foundation to ask for a form. If your application is successful, the sponsoring organization will receive the grant.

Grant Amounts

Applicants may apply for grants between $1,500 to $10,000.

Eligible Expenses and Activities

Organizations are encouraged to apply for funding for specific needs that may include any of the following:

  • Staff and volunteer training
  • PPE and other pandemic health and safety equipment
  • Digital and technology upgrades
  • Adapting workspaces
  • Marketing
  • Other capacity-building efforts such as diversity, equity and inclusion work
  • Developing creative content
  • Research and creative development for new artistic programming for both during the pandemic and for reopening period
  • Financial recovery plans including deficit reduction, and long-range financial planning
  • Organizational capacity building for a post pandemic future including governance, community relations, HR etc.
  • Developing new or additional virtual, online strategic initiatives to stabilize and maintain healthy organizations (e.g. advance digital production skills and presence on-line, digital marketing and communications
  • Advancing fundraising skills and revenue diversification capacity
  • Building practical tools and plans for a for a solid and bold recovery and reboot (promotion, PPE, signage, marketing, cleaning)
  • Planning for the future including long term disaster and emergency resilience (modelling and scenario planning)
  • Collaborative projects with other arts/cultural partners to strengthen and support sector recovery and resiliency
  • Assessing impacts (data gathering and analysis, identify and track impacts)
  • Determine needs, challenges and opportunities, and support for them including urgent needs (fixed costs etc.)

Financial support for COVID-19 pandemic recovery and resiliency needs/expenses is available for the costs of the following:

  • Renovations and plexiglass, cleaning, signage etc., consultation with specialists
  • PPE and other special pandemic health and safety equipment
  • Staff and volunteer training for reopening and operating under Covid 19 health and safety restrictions
  • Staff and board management training related to crisis management, recovery and sustainability
  • Professional services: planning, capacity building, accounting, legal, HR
  • Creative research, artistic planning and development for current or reopening programming including artists’ fees, funding for individual artists for creation or completion of new work (artistic pipeline)
  • Professional development re: digital/virtual market places, video production, streaming etc.
  • Organizational capacity building, adaptation and transition: governance, equity and diversity
  • Developing knowledge and/or skills in administration, technology and related digital platforms and/or artistic practice
  • Specialized marketing and promotional campaigns
  • Micro and macro marketing, promotion and communication initiatives to bring audiences, sponsors and volunteers back to live arts experiences
  • Documenting artistic work
  • Upgrading technology
  • Website development that addresses Covid 19 related challenges and opportunities
  • Marketing artistic work to presenters
  • Creating and adapting workspaces (as distinct from presentation spaces)
  • Providing services to local artists and arts organizations
  • Organizations may ask to apply their grants to more than one strategic direction or initiative and apply for funds in more than one category of eligible expenses.
  • Partnerships and collaborations require applications separate from those of individual organizations and must identify a lead partner.
  • Funds must be applied to specific costs/expenses, and dollar value estimates are required.
  • You can focus on a specific need or ask for a grant to support a broader program of recovery and resilience projects and initiatives, including deficit reduction.

Ineligible Expenses and Activities

  • Capital campaigns; regular activities of faith-based organizations; Individuals; National or provincial initiatives with no specific benefit to Peterborough; Annual funding drives or events; Political activities prohibited by Canada Revenue Agency
  • Grants are not available to reduce accumulated debts that precede COVID-19. Grant requests for deficit relief may not exceed $10,000 or 50% of the operating deficit.

Timing of Proposed Activities

Grant recipients must commit to completing funded activities and expenditures between the date that the grant is approved and December 31, 2021. They will be required to submit a one-page report documenting the progress of the project.

Number of Applications and Collaborations

Organizations may only submit one grant application for themselves; however, organizations may apply for their own grant as well as be part of or lead partnership or collaborative projects as long as there is no duplication of activities or eligible costs/expenses. Organizations may also be a fiscal sponsor for another incorporated not-for-profit.

Application Review

Grant applications will be reviewed and adjudicated by a Peer Assessment Committee that recommends Peterborough Arts Alive grants to specific organizations. Final grants must be approved by the Community Foundation’s Board of Directors and the EC3 Board of Directors.

Assessment Criteria

  • Role and impact of the arts organization in the local arts community
  • Stability and sustainability of the arts organization pre-COVID-19
  • Clarity of the proposed strategic recovery and resiliency plan outlined
  • Impact of the grant on the arts organization and on the broader arts community
  • Capacity of the organization to deliver the program of activities or initiatives proposed

Deadline

Applications close at Monday, June 7 at 9pm. Grants will be reviewed in June and decisions will be announced at the start of July.

Reporting

Grant recipients will be required to provide a short progress report on their activities by September 30, 2021.

Contact Information

For information on the grant program or your application, please email Su Ditta (electriccitycc@gmail.com). For information on the application form or the portal, please email Jennifer DeBues (jennifer.debues@cfgp.ca).

Additional Information

Introduction

The Peterborough Arts Alive (PAA) Fund is an Electric City Culture Council (EC3) project that provides Strategic Recovery and Resilience Grants to professional arts organizations with charitable status (and incorporated not-for-profits who have partnered with a “fiscal sponsor” who is a registered charity) working in Peterborough or the surrounding region (Peterborough County, Curve Lake and Hiawatha First Nations). See information on working with a “Fiscal Sponsor” in the Eligibility Criteria section below and on the Application Form.

Purpose of the Program

This fund, organized and administered jointly by the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough (CFGP) and the Electric City Culture Council (EC3), with additional fundraising support from the Peterborough Performing Arts Recovery Alliance (PPARA), EC3’s individual private donors, CFGP endowment donors, and a major contribution from the City of Peterborough, provides financial assistance to arts organizations to undertake both immediate, and strategic, long-term action to ensure that their organizations survive the impact of COVID-19 and continue to thrive in the future. The program is open to local arts organizations who have experienced revenue losses resulting in a negative financial, HR, or creative programming impact due to COVID-19, including liquidity, cash flow issues and deficits, staffing, infrastructure, audience attrition, revenue or artistic development, etc.

The Peterborough Arts Alive Fund supports the Strategic Recovery and Resilience Grants program for arts organizations who, in collaboration with individual artists and other not-for profit arts groups in their discipline(s), will work to stay strong, weather the COVID-19 pandemic, plan effectively for recovery (both short and long term), and deliver a successful “reboot” for the entire arts sector and cultural infrastructure.

This Fund provides grants to local arts organizations working in any discipline and in any capacity (creation, production, exhibition, presentation, publication, distribution, performance, etc.). The fund will assist in effectively managing the negative impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic, recouping the costs of keeping the organization afloat during the pandemic, responding creatively to the current situation, preparing for a safe and robust reopening when they can, and planning for a sustainable future.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on the arts community in Peterborough and the surrounding region. This is a sector makes a profound contribution to the quality of life in Peterborough, and plays an enormous role in our social and economic well-being. Particularly at this time, in the face of necessary self-isolation and physical distancing, job loss, financial difficulty and loneliness, citizens are counting on arts organizations and artists more than ever to lift our spirits and bring us together through social media, and online projects and events. Supporting artists and arts organizations throughout the pandemic to ensure their survival, despite fixed overhead and sharply declining revenues, is essential to overall recovery.

In Peterborough, as in communities all across the country, cultural venues are still closed, events and exhibitions cancelled, festivals and fundraisers postponed, contracts suspended, live classes and workshops shut down. Individual artists are bleeding sales and commissions income and organizations are facing all kinds of financial uncertainty - box office revenue losses, facilities rental income zeroing out, fundraisers in question, BINGO income and sponsorship revenue of all kinds in doubt. Audiences and volunteers have been set adrift and staff laid off.

Yet, rent must be paid, heat, hydro, insurance, property taxes and other bills are due and staff are desperately needed now, to keep organizations afloat, manage program changes and plan for the future. Arts groups worry that artists, experiencing the same problems, will give up their practices, that their brands will fade from the public’s memory, that established patrons will slip away. “Reopening” scenarios remain in a fog of uncertainty about when authorities will deem it safe to do so, at what capacity, and how it might be done in different facilities and venues. Can groups survive until then? Will they make it through the transition period?

These organizations and the individual artists they work with cope with precarious social and economic living conditions in the best of times. Vulnerable and marginalized, the arts survive and thrive with dedicated management and governance, on razor thin margins, with personal ingenuity, creative innovation, sacrifice and hard work.

These grants are intended to make that survival and a great come back more likely. This sector is full of creative ideas on how to make it through and bounce back hard, strong and fast when the time comes. Artists and community members alike are counting on them to do just that! The PAA Fund’s Strategic Response and Resilience Grants will provide them with some of the tools and resources to achieve that goal.

Purpose of the Grants

These grants are intended to make survival and a great comeback more likely. Like all enterprises and not-for-profit organizations, arts groups need financial support to weather the storm and prepare to reboot once the crisis is over. This sector is full of creative ideas on how to make it through and bounce back hard, strong and fast when the time comes. Artists and community members alike are counting on arts organizations to do just that! The PAA Fund’s Strategic Response and Resiliency Grants will provide them with some of the tools and resources to achieve that goal.

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advocacy
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partnerships
networks promotion
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arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
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creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
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professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
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artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
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convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building
cultural incubators
artsweek
professional development workshops
advocacy
research
partnerships
networks promotion
education
arts awareness
representation
arts awards
forums
knowledge sharing
support services
strategic leadership
creative programming ideas
planning
solutions
convening
connecting
capacity building