Funding | Overview
What is Creative New Zealand project funding?
Creative New Zealand offers grants for arts projects as one of the ways we work to develop and promote New Zealand's arts and artists, both at home and internationally.
We fund projects that:
- focus on the development of New Zealand arts and artists
- are stand-alone arts activities with a start and an end point, or are programmes of work over a clearly defined period of time.
Funding for arts projects is managed by our three funding bodies: the Arts Board, Te Waka Toi (the Māori arts board) and the Pacific Arts Committee. Creative New Zealand staff administer the funding rounds and provide advice to applicants. Applications are assessed by expert peer assessors. Their funding recommendations are forwarded to the appropriate funding body, which makes the final decisions. The funding bodies have a limited amount of money and cannot fund all applications.
Creative New Zealand also offers a range of awards, bursaries, scholarships, fellowships and residencies.These are listed on our Closing Dates page.
Finding your way around the funding information on this website
This section contains a lot of information, some of which won't be relevant to you or your project. To get started, work your way through our three-step process to getting started. This process will help you work out if you're eligible and understand which funding bodies you can apply to. It will also direct you to the funding programme that is right for your project.
If you would rather work your way through the funding process using our printed publication The Funding Guide Nga Putea, please order a copy on our publications order page.
Who gets funding?
Creative New Zealand has a limited amount of money to spread across its wide range of activities. Project funding is just one of a number of programmes we operate every year. The amount of money available for project funding is limited ($7.45 million in the previous financial year).
Project funding is a competitive process. In general, less than one in three applications are offered a grant.
Feedback
Your feedback on the funding section of our website is welcome. Please email us if you have any suggestions on how we can improve it (feedback@creativenz.govt.nz).
New funding system to be operational from February 2009 funding round
Creative New Zealand has recently completed a review of how it funds projects through the Arts Board, Te Waka Toi and the Pacific Arts Committee. As a result of this review, Creative New Zealand will be implementing a new funding system for the February 2009 funding round. In the meantime, the current approach to project funding will remain in place for the July 2008 funding round.
Review of project funding and special opportunities for artists
