12 Aug 2020
We appreciate that the Government announcement yesterday, regarding new COVID-19 cases and higher alert levels, may have created concern and uncertainty around future arts activity and events, especially for artists, practitioners and arts organisations in Auckland.
We will continue to work to address the impact of COVID-19 on our people, our whānau, our communities (both national and international), and our organisation.
Our first priority is to monitor this evolving situation and position ourselves to respond quickly, with flexibility, so that we are able to further support the sector as required.
We designed our current 12-month investment programme (2020/2021) for the alert level 1 environment and may need to adjust it to be consistent with the government’s response to the changing environment. We will update the sector as soon as we can if this needs to happen.
While we hope the increased alert levels will be temporary, we can’t rule out changing the 2020/2021 programmes, including funding opportunities, to enable us to respond where the need is greatest.
We will also continue to comply with government advisories (including alert levels) and/or border controls and exercise our judgement regarding our programmes and funding opportunities. For this reason, when making funding decisions, we may decline a programme or project if it is not viable at the time of notification, regardless of when the project is planned to take place.
As a precaution, given the uncertainty related to travel and large gatherings, we have cancelled an arts community stakeholder event we were to hold in Auckland on Monday 24 August. We will look to hold this at a future date.
We’ll continue to provide regular information on our website and social media so you can easily keep up to date with any changes.
Currently funded projects
- Please note: this advice is about project funding grants – not for activities within our Toi Tōtara Haemata and Toi Uru Kahikatea investment clients’ agreed programmes and budgets.
- We encourage you to take time to consider any impact the current COVID-19 restrictions might have on your project, or as the situation develops. We’ll provide further updates as we have them.
- In the meantime, you’re welcome to email us if you need to make changes to your project as a result of the impact of COVID-19. We will then contact you to discuss.
- Email us at funding@creativenz.govt.nz – we anticipate it may take us some time to be able to respond to everyone with affected projects, as well as those enquiring about our recently opened funding opportunities.
Funding opportunities - open and planned
Arts Grants
- Arts Grants Round 1 is open, and at this stage will close as planned on 28 August.
- The Arts Grant programme was designed for a government alert level 1 environment, but with short decision-making timeframes and rolling rounds so we can move quickly to adapt to different scenarios.
- When applying, you will need to ensure your project will be possible within the government alert level current at the time of notification. We suggest you also describe any potential changes you might make if the alert level is lower or higher when we are making our decision (just prior to the round notification date published in the funding calendar).
- If you have already submitted your application you can email us at funding@creativenz.govt.nz to:
- add an additional piece of support material which describes how the project can be delivered at different alert levels (in PDF file format). This must be supplied by the published closing date of the round (1pm on 28 August).
- ask us to unsubmit your application, so you can either rework it due to the alert level changes and resubmit it, or wait to submit it a later round.
Note that there is no guarantee an unsubmitted application can be resubmitted in that same round. In other words, if you unsubmit your proposal to make changes and in the meantime 200 applications have been received we cannot guarantee your “place”.
Also note that round closing dates are dependent on when 200 applications have been submitted and may be earlier than published in the funding calendar. At least twice daily, we update the number of submitted applications to an open round. You can check this information in the Arts Grants Funding Round ‘More Details’ section of the portal.
- You may decide to unsubmit your application and not resubmit it at this time – your unsubmitted application will be available for you to copy into an application for a new round if you want to wait.
- We will also continue to comply with government advisories (including alert levels) and/or border controls. For this reason, when making funding decisions, we may decline a programme or project if it is not viable at the time of notification, regardless of when the project is planned to take place.
Future Arts Grants rounds and Special Opportunities
This includes Todd New Writer’s Bursary, Toi Ake Fund, Toi Tipu Toi Rea – Emerging Māori Artist Fund, Tup Lang Choreographic Award.
- At this stage, we will open these opportunities as planned (see our funding calendar).
- When applying, you need to ensure your project will be possible within the government alert level current at the time of notification. We suggest you also describe any potential changes you might make if the alert level is lower or higher when we are making our decision (just prior to the round notification date published in the funding calendar).
- We will also continue to comply with government advisories (including alert levels) and/or border controls. For this reason, when making funding decisions, we may decline a programme or project if it is not viable at the time of notification, regardless of when the project is planned to take place.
Ngā Toi ā Rohe – Arts in the Regions Fund
- At this stage, we will open this fund as planned on 31 August.
- When applying, you need to ensure your project will be possible within the government alert level current at the time of notification. We suggest you also describe any potential changes you might make if the alert level is lower or higher when we are making our decision (just prior to the round notification date).
Annual Arts Grants
- This fund remains open.
- When applying, you need to ensure your programme or project will be possible within the government alert level current at the time of notification. We suggest you also describe any potential changes you might make if the alert level is lower or higher when we are making our decision (just prior to the round notification date, 4 November).
- We will also continue to comply with government advisories (including alert levels) and/or border controls. For this reason, when making funding decisions, we may decline a programme or project if it is not viable at the time of notification, regardless of when the project is planned to take place.
Capability Fund and Adaptation Fund
- The opening of the Adaptation and Capability funds, planned for this Friday, (14 August), is on hold until we have more information about the needs of the organisations in our Toi Tōtara Haemata and Toi Uru Kahikatea programmes at this time and about the government’s response to the changing situation, including COVID-19 alert levels. We are contacting eligible organisations directly.
Creative Communities Scheme
There is no change to the current programme, which is administered on our behalf by local councils.
Annual Awards
Our annual awards will continue as planned, with the announcements and ceremonies dictated by the alert levels in place as we plan and progress.
International programme
As previously communicated, due to the global impact of COVID-19 the majority of the international funding programmes are on hold for our current financial year (July 2020 to June 2021). However, funding is available through our Arts Grants programme to support New Zealand artists, arts practitioners, arts groups and arts organisations to engage in a variety of international activity, including the presentation of art works. Read more in our Funding guidelines - international activity
Read more about the International programme on our website.
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