Diversity Focus Brings Opportunities, Challenges to Canada Council for the Arts
Submitted by Steve on February 17, 2016
From J. Kelly Nestruck, writing for The Globe and Mail:
The Canada Council for the Arts is getting a new funding model in April of 2017 a total rethink of the Ottawa-based granting council that reduces its number of programs from 148 to a streamlined six. As details of this shift have started to emerge in recent weeks, however, the most striking change may be the direct tying of diversity to funding for large arts organizations for the first time since the Canada Council was established in 1957. It’s not just the diversity of art and artists that will come under scrutiny in the future at institutions with revenue of more than $2-million.
If the administration or backstage crew at your opera or ballet company, or the audience for your symphony or theatre company, or the board of directors of your art gallery, does not demonstrate a “commitment to reflecting the diversity of your organization’s geographic community or region,” this will now affect the size of grant received from the federal arts council.