TOURISM, HERITAGE AND CULTURE
OPERATIONAL GRANT PROGRAM
SERVICE-BASED ARTS ORGANIZATION COMPONENT
2015-2016
Program Guidelines
Application Deadline: April 15th
GOALS
Administered by the Arts and Cultural Industries Branch of the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture (the
Department), the Service-based Arts Organizations Component of the Operational Grant Program provides operating
grants for eligible organizations that meet the evaluation criteria to help them to provide services and /or arts programs to
their members in order to promote the vitality of the arts community. The program is designed to help strengthen the artistic
and organizational capacities of eligible organizations to ensure their ongoing organizational growth and development.
OBJECTIVES
Based on the Cultural Policy, the Operational Grant program seeks to achieve the following:
 Help organizations improve access to, and create a greater awareness of culture in New Brunswick resulting in measurable
increases in participation in cultural activities;
 Support excellence and professionalism in arts organizations, measured by the organizations’ ability to improve capacity, to
develop staff through increased levels of professionalism (artists/creators, arts professionals, administrators) and to offer
membership services of high quality;
 Enhance the contributions of culture to New Brunswick’s quality of life and economic growth, and;
 Support the efforts of arts organizations to achieve greater self-sufficiency; greater efficiency in service delivery and financial
management; and reduce their dependence on public funding.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
The Operational Grant Program aims to support Service-based Arts Organizations that represent the best investment for the
province. The evaluation process will focus on the merit of the applications and reward excellence, growth, and efficiency of
organizational structure and financial management. Applicants will be assessed along three main pillars which are:
1. Excellence;
2. Membership Development; and
3. Cultural Sector Development
The Service-based Arts Organizations program component is for organizations whose main role consists of providing coordination,
organization, promotion, representation, and technical services support (information, training) for professional artists and arts
organizations.
This program is intended for such provincial service organizations as:
 Provincial community arts organizations;
 Professional artists’ associations.
ELIGIBILITY
First-time applicants must:
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Contact the Program Officer at least two months before the application deadline.
Have received a minimum of two years’ project funding from the Department on projects that enhance the organization’s
operational capacity and/or strategic positioning in the sector.
 Have a minimum annual budget of $30,000 per year.
 Operate year round.
 Support the work of New Brunswick artists, pay artist and professional fees in keeping with established national guidelines.
Note: The Department reserves the right to make the final decision with respect to granting a new applicant access to the
program.
Organizations applying under this program must demonstrate that they:
 Are a provincial arts development support organization whose role consists of coordination, organization, promotion,
representation, and technical services support (information, training) for professional artists and/or arts organizations;
 Are incorporated as a non-profit organization;
 Are established in New Brunswick;
 Have been in operation for at least two years;
 Operate on a full-time basis and support ongoing activities;
 Are not in violation of the Act under which it was incorporated;
 Employ qualified professionals in designated administrative and/or artistic positions (i.e. director, coordinator, artistic director,
etc.)
INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS
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Recreational or commercial organizations;
Organizations that failed to submit a report on an earlier grant awarded by the Department or that submitted an
incomplete report;
Universities, colleges, and municipalities;
Capital projects (equipment, renovations, new buildings etc.) and fundraising activities.
EVALUATION PROCESS
Pre-Assessment:
Before forwarding applications to the independent assessment panel, the Department conducts an initial review of the application
and/or organization to ensure basic eligibility to the program. An application may be withheld from the panel if:
 The submission is late;
 The submission does not contain all required components and the organization fails to forward the information to the
Department on request, in a timely manner;
 The applicant has failed to address serious issues identified by previous assessment panels;
 The organization fails to meet its financial obligations and/or the required reports, and financial forms for other funded
projects are not forwarded to the Department in a timely manner;
 The organization undergoes a disruption of activities that has a negative impact on the organization;
 The organization is in violation of the Act under which it was incorporated;
 The funding budget available to the Department is reduced such that a revision of the expenditure plan is necessary.
Assessment Panel:
 Following pre-assessment by the Arts and Cultural Initiatives Branch, applications are reviewed by an independent
application assessment panel. Panellists conduct an individual scoring of each application, and then meet about four weeks
later to discuss and score the applications as a group.
 The application assessment panel consists of professionals working in the arts sector in Canada with the knowledge and
expertise to make sound qualitative judgements in their field, whether as practicing artists, creators, interpreters, arts
administrators, directors, arts critics, arts educators, or other arts professionals. Panel members are selected to ensure fair
representation of expertise, knowledge of the arts sector, regional diversity, language and culture.
 Once the panel’s group discussion and scoring of applications is complete, final recommendations are made for each
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applicant’s grant allocation.
EVALUATION CRITERIA
The multi-criteria evaluation method is based on general criteria linked to the program objectives, which are based on the objectives of
the Cultural Policy. The evaluation takes into account the applicant’s organizational effectiveness (fiscal responsibility, efficiency) and
the overall impact of its services and activities. To guide applicants, an explanation of each criterion is found in the Application Form.
GRANT REQUIREMENTS
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Organizations must complete the program Application Form, including all required attachments;
Organizations must be registered on the NB Cultural Facilities Inventory. For more information, visit http://nbcfssicnb.gnb.ca/en/
Organizations must acknowledge the support of the Province of New Brunswick in all promotional material of the
organization.
Note: In case of disagreement concerning the interpretation of its policies and programs, the Department reserves the
right to final interpretation of the intent and implementation of a program. The Department reserves the right to revise
programs at any time without notice.
GRANT MODIFICATION AND ALLOCATION
At the outset of the evaluation process, funding begins with a base amount of 80% of the previous year’s grant. Any supplementary
amount to the grant is based on the strength and merit of the application (described above), and recommended by the panel. The
panel may recommend that an applicant receive 100% of the previous year’s grant (status quo), an increase to the previous year’s
grant, or a decrease to the previous year’s grant (less than 100% of the previous year’s grant)
The panel may also recommend that no grant be allocated if:
 The organization has not met minimum standard requirements for the program.
 The organization has failed to demonstrate significant improvement in problem areas identified by previous panels that have
resulted in grants cuts of 10% or more for two successive years in a row. In this case, an organization will receive fair notice
that the organization may be removed from the program.
REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
Service-based arts organizations are required to complete financial and statistical reports on the CADAC website, as well as provide
a year-end report of activities with the application before being eligible for funding to the next fiscal year.
These documents are:
 Online CADAC financial form (see application form for details);
 Online CADAC statistical form (see application form for details);
 Year-end report of activities, which would include:
 Major accomplishments of the current year;
 Human Resources challenges
 Financial challenges;
 Objectives for the up-coming year.
An organization in receipt of an annual operational grant will be required to provide these report documents with the application form
for the next fiscal year. The deadline date to receive all documents is April 15th.
FINANCIAL RECONCILIATION
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CADAC’s role is to ensure that last year’s actual financial figures are the same in CADAC and in the audit – its role is to
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reconcile the financial statements for your last completed year and the financial data in CADAC.
CADAC will be in touch with you directly if the figures don’t match.
Grant cheques can be withheld until the applicant completes all changes required by CADAC.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
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The Department must be notified immediately of any change in the initial application or the budget submitted.
Applicants must keep the guidelines and a copy of their application form for their records.
The Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture is subject to the Right to Information Act and the Protection of Personal
Information Act.
The guidelines for this component may be modified without any notice and apply to all applications submitted.
NOTIFICATION OF RESULTS
Service-based Arts Organizations will be notified of the results within two months following the application deadline.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF DEPARTMENT’S SUPPORT
Successful applicants must acknowledge the support of the Government of New Brunswick in all promotional material associated with
the grant.
RELEASE OF INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC
The applicant acknowledges and agrees that, if awarded a grant, the name of the grant recipient, the recipient’s community, the
program name, and the amount of the grant, will be published by the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture on the Government
of New Brunswick web site and in the Department’s Annual Report.
**NEW** APPLICATION PROCESS
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Applications and Submissions of supplementary information (programs, brochures, exhibition catalogues, etc.) must be
postmarked on or prior to April 15th.
Applications and all required supporting material must be sent electronically by:
o Email to culture@gnb.ca (multiple emails if required) or,
o CD, DVD, flash drive submitted to the mailing address at the bottom of the page.
Applications and submissions of supplementary information received after the deadline will NOT be accepted.
Note: The government’s email system has a limit of 9-10MB for any attachments. Anything larger will not be delivered. Our email
system will automatically send you an acknowledgement of receipt but that should not be interpreted as all of the
information/attachments having been received. When in doubt, please contact our Administrative Assistant at (506) 453-2555.
CONTACT INFORMATION
For questions or assistance, please contact Program Officers, Rebekah Chassé at (506) 453-5372, rebekah.chassé@gnb.ca or
Caroline Walker at (506) 444-5303, caroline.walker@gnb.ca.
Arts and Cultural Industries Branch
Dept. of Tourism, Heritage and Culture
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 6000
Fredericton, NB E3B 5H1
Courier:
670 King St., Room 672
Fredericton, NB E3B 1G1