Project Grant Program for Individuals and Collectives is sponsored by Calgary Arts Development. Provides one-time project funding to professional Calgary-based individual artists, artist collectives, and cultural workers in any artistic discipline.

Project Grant Program – Individuals and Collectives | Calgary Arts Development Project Grant Program – Individuals and Collectives Grant Program Categories: Artists & Collectives Project Grant Program – Individuals and Collectives March 23, 2026: Guidelines published and applications open at 9 am MT Late March – mid-May 2026: Virtual open office spaces April 29, 2026: Deadline to request feedback on your draft application May 13, 2026: Application deadline ( no applications accepted after 4:30 pm MT ) Mid-May – mid-September 2026: Evaluation of grants Mid-September 2026: Notification of results September – October 2026: Funds distributed The Project Grant Program for Individuals and Collectives provides one-time project funding to professional Calgary-based individual artists, artist collectives and cultural workers in any artistic discipline, to help support artistic projects.

Projects can include research, experimentation, professional development and learning; the creation, development or production of artistic work; marketing and promotion; or presenting or sharing artistic work with the public. Individual artists may apply for up to $20,000, and artist collectives may apply for up to $25,000. Total funding available for this program is $3.

1 million. Information Session & Open Offices You can learn more about this program by watching an online information session or by bringing your questions to one of the virtual ‘open office spaces. ’ A pre-recorded information session for the Project Grant — Individuals and Collectives is available below.

In this information session, we provide an overview of the program guidelines and application process. ASL interpretation is included in the recording. Be sure to read the full Program Guidelines before you apply.

The deadline is May 13, 2026 at 4:30 pm MT. PGIC Information Session Transcript Jasmine Piper: Hello. My name is Jasmine Piper, and I am joined by Sadie and Janice.

Welcome to the information session for the 2026 Project Grant for Individuals and Collectives. The purpose of this recording is to share information and context about the project grant for the 2026 grant year. However, please be aware that this info session will not be going through all the details about this program.

Everything important that applicants need to know is fully outlined in the Program Guidelines on our website as well as our investment program FAQs , frequently asked questions. Please read those documents in full before you consider applying. If you require any kind of support to read or understand those documents, please reach out to us.

CADA is happy to help with any costs related to translation or interpretation. Staff are also here to answer questions and provide clarity. When in doubt, please reach out.

The primary contact for this program, is Jasmine Piper, please reach out to me directly with any questions you may have about the project grant for individuals and collectives. If you have any questions specifically related to the online grant platform or any technical issues, please contact grants@calgaryartsdevelopment. com .

We acknowledge that the land we gather on, Mohkinsstsis, is the ancestral territory of the Siksikaitsitapi — the Blackfoot people — comprising the Siksika, Kainai and Piikani Nations, as well as Treaty 7 signatories, the Tsuut’ina Nation and the Îyârhe Nakoda Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney First Nations.

Today this land is home to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government Districts 5 and 6 as well as many First Nations and Inuit from across Turtle Island. For those of you who may not be familiar with Calgary Arts Development Authority, commonly referred to as CADA for short, we are the City of Calgary’s designated arts development and municipal granting organization.

We are mandated by the City of Calgary to steward public tax dollars for the public good, for the benefit of all Calgarians. We believe in arts-led city building and fostering a sustainable and resilient arts sector which we do primarily through making grant investments and providing opportunities to individual artists, artist collectives and non-profit arts organizations here in Calgary.

I want to take a moment to talk about CADA’s Commitment to Equity , which is an ongoing and never-ending commitment and learning journey.

It’s important to acknowledge that systems like granting and public funding are usually designed in a one-size-fits-all way, meaning they are designed for the dominant culture and are rooted in colonial Western European academic systems which create barriers to access for many artists in our communities who are seeking and deserving of support.

One obvious example of this is that we currently share our programs and accept applications primarily in an online written format in English. This alone creates technological, linguistic communication and cultural barriers, to name a few. As a public funder, we have a responsibility to ensure equitable access to public funding.

We envision a city where all artists have the freedom, agency and platform to share and amplify their stories, art, cultures and experiences. A city where Calgarians of all backgrounds can access, create and participate in art as every part of their everyday lives. To that end, we are dedicated to addressing and working to eliminate institutional inequity in our programs, policies and practices.

Our staff are accountable to ensure that lines of communication are welcoming, clear and open, and our application and assessment processes are fair and deeply considerate. While we have been continuing to expand and improve our processes and policies around equity, accessibility and accommodation, we still have a long way to go.

We aim to continue building relationships and learning from our communities, particularly those most directly affected, about the specific challenges that exist in granting and working to create more equitable systems for everyone. So, how does CADA’s Commitment to Equity translate or apply to you as artists and potential applicants to our programs?

When applying to public grant programs like this one, we ask artists to consider concepts like ‘nothing about us without us,’ a concept and value that has been around for a very long time now, but I believe really grew in the 1990s from disability rights activists.

In this context, it’s the idea that if you are creating work about or for a specific community, that community needs to be actively engaged, ideally from the beginning, and there needs to be a thoughtful, intentional and reciprocal relationship with clear permissions, benefits and value for those communities.

We value and honour lived experience and the intersectional identities and unique perspectives of different people and communities. When applying to grant programs, it can be helpful to pause and ask yourself, why this? why now?

and why me? Be very mindful about the projects you choose to undertake and how you go about undertaking them and engaging with others. Connected to this concept, there are things that CADA will not tolerate, such as hate speech, cultural appropriation, or active exclusionary behaviours, so please be aware that any applications that contain this will not be supported.

When it comes to evaluating applications, this is something we ask peer committees to consider: Are applicants being thoughtful and considerate of the work they make, who they make it for and how they make it, and why? I’ll expand on this more when we talk about the program considerations for this grant. We understand that our programs and processes create barriers to access for many artists and organizations who want to apply.

In recognition of these barriers, our Applicant Support and Accessibility Policy is available for those who may need support from program staff or financial assistance to access support from someone outside of Calgary Arts Development.

This could include support for any part of the granting process, whether it be understanding our programs and who is eligible and deciding if they want to apply or not, creating and submitting a grant application, or support after receiving a grant, such as understanding your grant agreement, sharing project updates or submitting a final report. Some examples of accommodations are: Translation of written materials into other languages.

Transcription of verbal meetings or audio and video recordings into written documentation. Language interpretation for phone or video meetings. Video or audio applications.

This means that if you would prefer to answer application questions verbally, you can submit an audio or video recording of yourself, or our staff can help record your responses using an online platform, such as Zoom or Teams. And general grant writing assistance. We will work one-on-one with applicants and develop accommodations through conversation and check-ins.

Our team can assist you over the phone, in person or online. Help is available for applicants even if they choose not to apply for the program. In addition to this, staff will do our best to provide support or share feedback with you over the phone, video calls or email.

Just remember to reach out early. We can only guarantee you feedback on draft applications up to 10 business days before a program deadline. To help with managing volume, we are also hosting virtual open office Q&A sessions, throughout the month of April and May.

There will be five virtual open offices for 60 minutes each leading up until the week before the deadline. These virtual open offices are offered on different days of the week at different times of day to help accommodate various schedules. Please take advantage of these if questions arise throughout the process of applying.

In these 60-minute sessions, staff will basically be hanging out in a Zoom room answering any questions about the project grant and providing applicants with support. Some artists like to come and hang out the entire time and listen to other people’s questions simply to learn, and some folks prefer to pop in and out just to ask their own specific questions.

The registration links for these are on our website , in the same place you found this recorded info session. Just email if you cannot find it on the project grant program page . We understand that our staff may not always have the skills or capacity to fully support all applicants’ needs.

If you are an applicant who faces any barriers that make it difficult to fairly access our programs, you may wish to seek out personal one-to-one assistance from someone outside of Calgary Arts Development to help you with the application process. If this is something you need, Calgary Arts Development can directly pay for external support for the hours they spend helping you with your application.

This might include artists who identify as: D/deaf or hard of hearing, having a cognitive, developmental or physical disability, living with a mental illness, facing language, geographic or cultural barriers, facing technological barriers, limited internet or computer access and additional barriers that are not listed here. Who can you get assistance from?

We may be able to offer some recommendations for professional service providers, but it is ultimately your responsibility to select the support person or service that you wish to use. We want you to have trust and comfort with the person you choose to support you, and you may choose to get support from a professional service provider, an artistic peer or friend or family member. What services can they assist you with?

Language translation, general transcription or editing services, application development, helping with framing your ideas, concepts, or organizing support material. What part of the application process can they assist with?

Reviewing program guidelines and deciding if you want to apply, preparing and submitting an application, receiving and accepting a commission or funding, for example, support when interpreting grant notifications or completing and returning an investment agreement, or completing a direct deposit form, and preparing and submitting a final report. What is the maximum amount Calgary Arts Development will give?

We understand that costs will vary, and we expect hourly rates and total hours billed to be reasonable, fair and equitable. The maximum we can provide is $600. How do I request application assistance?

Simply call or email us before you apply and let us know that you are interested in requesting approval for paid application assistance. Emails can be sent to grants@calgaryartsdevelopment. com .

You do not need to disclose any specific details about the barriers you experience unless you wish to. For example, you don’t have to share your diagnosis, all we need to know is that you are experiencing accessibility-related barriers and are interested in accessing paid application assistance.

We are not able to offer application assistance for artists who hire or work with grant writers for professional or time-saving reasons, as opposed to accessibility-related reasons. Staff will chat with you to ensure that you are eligible to apply to the grant programs you are interested in first, and then confirm if you are approved for application assistance.

After a CADA staff member has approved your request, we will make a note in your file so that you do not need to continue to request assistance for every single grant program or every phase of the application process. For example, when applying, when reporting, this note will only be visible to staff members with access to our online grant platform. Submitting an invoice to CADA.

After you have received application support from someone, they will need to submit a basic invoice to Calgary Arts Development so we can pay them directly. We do not pay you, the applicant, we pay the person who provided the service or support.

The invoice must include the support person’s full legal name, phone number, email address and mailing address, the applicant’s name, the name of the program that they helped you with, the total number of hours they helped you and their hourly rate — there is no recommended hourly rate, as it depends on the service and context. We expect rates to be fair and equitable for the person and service provided.

And finally, the total amount requested. Staff will review the invoice and follow up with the support person to ensure we all have the information we need, i.e. banking information to pay them directly through electronic fund transfer. Please note, these options for staff support and outside support, or paid assistance, are not mutually exclusive.

You can access either option or both to help support you during any stage of the application process. In fact, it can be helpful for you and your support person to connect with the Calgary Arts Development program staff to ask questions so that you can both understand the program, requirements, criteria and processes. Please reach out early if you have any questions.

This program is intended to provide one-time project funding for a specific project, activity or initiative to Calgary-based individual artists, artist collectives or cultural workers.

Please read the Guidelines for a full definition of each of those categories before applying, and please keep in mind, this program cannot accept applications from arts administrators, agents or managers, production companies, registered for-profit corporations or businesses or registered not-for-profit organizations. Applicants may be working in any artistic discipline at any stage of practice.

While activities do not have to take place in Calgary, eligible applicants must be Calgary-based. This means you primarily live and work in Calgary, i.e., for at least six months of the year. You should be able to demonstrate that the majority of your work is accessible to the citizens of Calgary, and that you have a meaningful and ongoing relationship with the city and its artistic communities.

If you do not currently reside in Calgary, please contact program staff to discuss your eligibility before applying. We acknowledge that there are many artists who are new or returning to the City of Calgary and may not be familiar with grant programs or the local arts community.

If you are a newcomer, immigrant, refugee or re-emerging Calgary artist and have questions or concerns about eligibility or navigating the grant process, please know that our program staff are available to help guide and support you. It’s also important to note that you do not need to be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to receive a CADA grant, but you do need to be able to report on this grant to the Canada Revenue Agency.

We welcome applications from those working in all artistic disciplines and their various cultural forms. This includes but is not limited to: Art for social change.

arts education, art service, circus arts, community art, craft, curatorial practice, dance, D/deaf arts, digital arts, disability and/or mad arts, film, Indigenous arts, interdisciplinary, literary arts, media arts, multidisciplinary, music, opera, orchestra, performance, public art, social practice, sound art, theatre, transdisciplinary and visual arts. What can you apply for?

Applicants may apply to this program for one project or one distinct phase of a project. Please ensure you are clear about what phase of the work you are applying for, especially for larger or longer-term projects that may have multiple stages or phases. If you have questions about your project phases, please contact us to chat.

Research projects to inform your artistic work, processes, approaches, etc.; creation or production of work; the creation and development of new work; adaptations of previous work; experimentation, etc.; professional development and learning; participating in courses, classes, workshops, residencies, trainings, mentorships, apprenticeships, networking and industry events/ conferences.

You can present or share your work with the public, sharing, distributing, or selling your work through exhibitions, installations, events, presentations, performances, touring, releases, publishing, and you can market and promote activities related to the publicity and outreach, branding, promotion and marketing of your work and artistic practice, and you can network and attend industry events.

If you have questions about other potential project activities, please contact program staff to discuss before applying. There is also a list of activities that we will not fund through this program located in the guidelines, so please read those as well. Projects should have a clear start and end date, with a specific set of activities, processes and goals.

And a reminder that while the applicant must be Calgary-based, the project can take place online or in person, locally, nationally or internationally. Individual artists may apply for up to $20,000, and artist collectives may apply for up to $25,000 towards their projects. The total funding available for this program is $3.

1 million. Not all projects will require the maximum request amount, and I will talk about the best ways to approach developing your budget later on. That said, if everyone who has applied to this program were to request the maximum grant amount available, we would be able to fund a minimum of 124 to 155 applications.

This number is likely to be higher, given that the request amounts will vary. While we cannot say for certain what the volume of applications will be this year, it has increased in past years, even doubling during the pandemic years. For context, in 2024, we received just over 500 applications with a success rate of 32 per cent, and in 2025 we received just over 600 applications with a success rate of 30 per cent.

The full program guidelines were published on the website and applications opened on March 23. Applications are being accepted until the application deadline of May 13, 2026, before 4:30 pm MT. We don’t accept applications after 4:30 MT, so please make a note in your calendar about the deadline so you do not miss it.

We make our deadlines at 4:30 instead of midnight so that it’s during office hours and program staff are available to help with any last-minute technical issues or questions. The server gets very busy on the day of a deadline, so please try to submit early on. It’s always safer to submit in advance of the deadline in case you have any technical issues or something comes up, like you get sick or have an emergency.

Please see the Deadline Extension Policy for information about extensions. After the deadline, applications to the program will be reviewed and evaluated by peer assessment committees until early September.

This assessment period allows staff time to review applications for completeness before assigning them to the committees and gives ample time for assessors to read applications, score them online, and meet multiple times with their respective committees in order to make final recommendations. More will be shared about the peer assessment in a few slides.

Notifications for the grant results will be sent over email in mid-September, letting applicants know if they were successful or not and confirming grant amounts. If you don’t see an email by September 21, please reach out. Funds will be distributed directly after results go out, between late September throughout October.

Funds are released after grantees sign and return their grant investment agreements. Since the grant results and funding will not occur until September/October of 2026, applicants must keep this in mind when planning. Before applying, please consider your own timeline, cash flow and circumstances.

If your project will already be done before the results and funding are released, please ensure that you are able to cover all costs on your own and be aware of the possibility of not receiving a grant. If you cannot undertake the project without first confirming and receiving funding, then please ensure it takes place after the funding is scheduled to be released.

Please keep in mind that we are unable to fully fund retroactive projects, which means that your project may already be underway before you submit your application or before you receive the grant results, but you cannot apply for a project that will be fully complete before the program deadline of May 13, 2026. Projects funded through this program must be complete by the end of the next year, which is December 31, 2027.

Successful grantees will be required to complete a brief final report to share an update on their completed activities, any learnings and how the grant benefited their practice, along with an updated budget with actuals. It’s very important to keep track of receipts, contracts, invoices, payments, etc. so that you can clearly report on where the grant funding was spent, both to CADA and the CRA come tax time.

Final reports will be due 60 days after the stated project end date in your application. If any significant changes regarding this program timeline must shift, applicants will be notified as soon as possible. Application eligibility varies by program, so always read the guidelines for the program you are applying to.

Some important eligibility rules for the project grant this year are as follows: Applicants may not have more than two open grants with Calgary Arts Development, including grants for which a deadline extension has been approved. So long as you’ve completed and submitted your report for a past grant, it is no longer considered open, even if staff have yet to review and approve your final report.

For more information, please review the Open Grant Policy . You must be in good standing if you wish to apply. This means you cannot have final reports pass their due dates for prior grants.

If you do, you will need to submit the report before applying or be granted an extension on your final report. Applicants may submit only one application per program deadline. Individual artists may be involved in more than one application, either as a participant or as a member of an artist collective.

Please apply with the correct account. Individual artists must apply using their Individual account and artist collectives must apply using their collective account. A project may only be submitted by one applicant per program deadline.

This means that multiple members of a group cannot submit for the same project to the same program deadline. CADA cannot fund the same phase of a project or activity more than once, regardless of calendar year. Please do not apply to more than one CADA program for the same project or phase of a project.

Please note that if you are awarded funding from another funding source, such as Alberta Foundation for the Arts or Canada Council for the Arts, that fully covers your proposed project expenses, you will not be able to also accept funds from Calgary Arts Development for the same project expenses and you will not be allowed to modify your original proposed Calgary Arts Development budget by increasing your estimated cost, or adding additional expenses to expand the scope or scale of your project.

Please reach out if you have any questions about eligibility or want confirmation about the number of open grants you can have. We stream applications to help manage volume and group applications that are more similar than not together in assessment. We also use program streams to help design the makeup of assessment committees.

In this program we ask applicants to select one of two program streams. To be assessed within Stream 1, applicants who are applying for a project that primarily involves disciplines and practices such as dance, theatre, music, opera, orchestra, circus, performance, etc. should apply to Stream 1.

Stream 2 applicants who are applying for a project that primarily involves disciplines and practices such as literary, visual arts, craft arts, curation, public art, digital art, media arts, film should all apply to Stream 2. Assessment committees are multidisciplinary and will be made up primarily of artists who work within the disciplines outlined within each program stream.

This helps ensure that there are multiple perspectives on the committees that are familiar with and have knowledge about the different processes, approaches, ways of working, ways of presenting, sharing or performing that are common across different kinds of disciplines.

If your project includes primary disciplines across both streams and you aren’t sure which to select, please reach out to a program specialist to discuss before applying.

For example, if you are a dancer who is producing a documentary about dance that is equal parts performance (Stream 1) and filmmaking (Stream 2), we can discuss what your project primarily involves and which perspectives might be most valuable in assessment given the focus of your project.

If you are applying to support a film’s pre-production phase, you might select Stream 2 to ensure that you have a filmmaking perspective, whereas if you were applying to do a series of live dance performances to launch a film, you may select Stream 1 to ensure there are performance perspectives on the committee. The $3.

1 million pool of funding available will be divided between the two program streams based on the number of applications that apply to each stream, and the dollar amount requested within each stream. Eligible Project Expenses Funds from this program may go towards almost any expense directly related to your project.

When it comes to requesting expenses, please make sure that any expense you request is directly related and necessary to accessing and undertaking your proposed activities. If you include ineligible expenses, please be aware that they may not be included or rewarded funding through this program.

There is a full list of both eligible and ineligible expenses in the program guidelines that are important to read through, but I will highlight a few specific things here: The first is a reminder that we want to see artists paid for their work, which includes yourself. Depending on your project, it might also include compensating consultants, participants, Knowledge Keepers, mentors, collaborators and more.

Artist fees, professional fees, per diems, honorariums and subsistence are all eligible expenses through this program. When it comes to paying yourself and or others through a grant, however, the way you frame or quantify these amounts will vary.

Unlike some funders, we have not set a specific cap or maximum on specific expenses since we understand that the true cost can vary greatly depending on the project, your circumstances, the type of work being done, the scope, the location, the length of time or duration of your project.

If you have questions about artist fees, subsistence, per diems or honorariums, please read our super helpful FAQs , where we define each of these terms in the glossary, and where we also share a write-up of how to frame or calculate artist fees or subsistence requests and when to ask for either.

Also, it can be helpful to lean on other artists in the community with experience and do your research to ensure that you are paying people equitably, and that rates and amounts are mutually agreed upon and supported. Honestly, if you have the room in your budget and you can pay above the minimum standard fee schedule or rate, it is a minimum recommendation, so please feel free to consider that.

This year, subsistence is now limited to $3,000 per month per person receiving subsistence in the project. We hope this structure will provide clarity around subsistence calculations. We do not require personal information like your lease or your utility bills to support subsistence expenses, but we do want to see a general breakdown of how you calculated your subsistence and the timeframe that it will cover.

There is no maximum amount of time you can request subsistence for, as long as your project is completed by December 31, 2027. We previously had a cap on how much of your CADA grant could go towards the purchase of equipment, which is considered a capital expense or asset, as you own it, and it lasts well beyond the length of just this one project, and it depreciates over time. Currently, there is no cap on equipment purchases.

That said, there are some important things to consider when you are requesting equipment through a public grant program that I want to emphasize. This does not mean that you can request $20,000 to $25,000 solely in equipment purchases. You are unlikely to be successful if the majority of your grant is simply to equip yourself with a variety of expensive equipment purchases.

As it states in the program guidelines, any equipment requested must be specific and directly related to the completion and success of your proposed project. Just like any expense in your project budget, you will need to make a clear