Creative Impact Fund 2026 - Round 1

27 applications have been offered funding of $825,016 to make, share, and present work that enriches audiences and communities, encouraging understanding and participation. We received 247 eligible applications with $10,729,419 requested.

Funding type summary

• Ngā toi Māori: 4 applicants were offered funding totalling $200,000
  $2,489,725.69 was requested by 51 applicants
• Pacific arts: 2 applicants were offered funding totalling $75,000
  $945,165.21 was requested by 17 applicants
• General arts: 21 applicants were offered funding totalling $550,015.50
  $7,294,528.07 was requested by 179 applicants

Artform summary

• 2 – Craft/Object
• 1 – Dance
• 6 – Literature
• 1 – Multidisciplinary arts
• 4 – Music
• 6 – Theatre
• 7 – Visual arts

Key themes and round observations

The Creative Impact Fund is focused on support for artists, practitioners, and groups of collaborators to make, share and present work that encourages knowledge sharing, enriches audiences and deepens understanding and participation in the arts.

In this round, we received the most applications from visual arts practitioners, followed by music and literature.

Assessment sought to ensure a spread of results across region, career stage and genre as much as possible, with consideration to Creative New Zealand’s investment through other funds and channels.

Strong applications in this round demonstrated these characteristics:

• They were timely and relevant to the arts sector and artform, and included the development of work and progression across career stages.
• They identified which communities were involved and how they would benefit.
• They showed how international opportunities would benefit arts practice, engage wider audiences, share learnings and benefit the Aotearoa arts sector, especially underserved communities or artforms.
• They were compelling and generated a strong sense of excitement.
• They were clearly articulated with relevant support material.
• Budgets were clear and accessible, revenue streams were diversified, and they aimed to reduce financial pressure on both artists and audiences.
• In collaborative artforms, budgets were allocated across production, accessibility, and people.
• They increased access to the arts for regional communities and audiences.
• They identified and responded to notable gaps in the arts ecosystem.
• They demonstrated impact not just for the practitioner but for the artform nationally or internationally.
• They demonstrated ongoing impact.
• They made a significant contribution to discourse, documentation or archiving of practice.
• They involved presentations with deep connections to people and place.
• They included authentic and meaningful engagement with community throughout the whole process, from creation to presentation.
• They had a strong creative concept, clear planning, and community buy-in.
• They supported career sustainability.
• They reflected Aotearoa's unique identity in the arts.

Recipients

The list of recipients will be published here on Friday 22 May.