Arts & Cultural Endowment Incentives

A unique partnership between the NB Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport and the NBFA will allow us to offer the Arts and Cultural Endowment Incentives Program for New Brunswick. This will build on the existing Canadian Heritage Endowment Incentive Program, and thus maximize the benefits to New Brunswick’s participating arts and cultural organizations.

The key feature of this program is to provide matching funds through the Department of Canadian Heritage for every dollar raised through private funding by participating organizations towards creating endowment funds or towards increasing existing endowments. Additional funding through the New Brunswick Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport will result in having a portion of the funds raised further matched to two dollars for every dollar raised by the participating organizations.

The program aims at strengthening the organizational effectiveness of arts organizations and building their capacity. The NBFA will manage these endowments and the participating organizations will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the income generated from the NBFA’s investment.

Objectives

  • To foster a climate, which encourages private donors to contribute to endowment funds to enable stable funding for not-for-profit professional arts and cultural organizations
  • To support capacity building of these organizations towards enhancing their artistic endeavours
  • To increase the availability of matching funds through the Canadian Heritage Endowment Incentive Program
  • To enable arts organizations in establishing their own endowment funds within NBFA and thereby minimize their administrative costs.

Eligibility Criteria

An application to the Canadian Heritage Endowment Incentives Program must be submitted by a not-for-profit professional arts and cultural organization. To be eligible, the organization must:

  • Be incorporated under the appropriate federal and provincial legislation;
  • Have as its principal mission:
    • The creation or production of professional artistic work;
    • The presentation of professional artistic works;
    • The training of professional artists
  • Receive support from either the Canada Council for the Arts, the Arts Presentation Canada program, or be a training institution supported through the National Arts Training Contribution Program (PCH)
  • Have been in operation for a minimum of three years prior to the application; without a negative net assets balance in excess of 15% of the total revenues for the fiscal year. The net assets balance used in this calculation must exclude any externally restricted components. Both figures to be used in this calculation are based on the financial statements presented according to the generally accepted accounting principals of Canada.

Excluded are: heritage organizations, competitions, federal and provincial agencies, crown corporations, municipalities and their agencies.

Funding

Department of Canadian Heritage Component

The final amount granted will be determined once all applications have been assessed. Recommended applicants will receive a grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage to match the funds raised from donations up to a maximum of one dollar for each dollar raised, depending on the availability of funds and the number of successful applicants. The maximum amount of funding eligible in each fiscal year is the lesser of $2,000,000 or 50% of the average value of the total revenues for the past three completed fiscal years.

New Brunswick Component

Applicants approved by the Department of Canadian Heritage will receive a further grant from the New Brunswick Foundation for the Arts from funds received from the New Brunswick Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport to match a portion of the funds raised from donations up to a maximum of one dollar for each dollar raised. The maximum amount of matched funding would be 25% of the maximum potential amount of funding matched by the Department of Canadian Heritage Component.

Conditions that Apply

To be considered for matching funds:

  1. Donations must come from private sources including non-governmental sources such as gifts from individuals, corporations or non-government foundations. Public funds from any level of government, including their agencies will not be considered for matching by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
  2. Donations must be secured. Pledges and bequests are not eligible.

As a condition of the receipt of matching funds from the Department of Canadian Heritage, the NBFA must demonstrate that the accumulated funds (funds raised and the matching grant) will be protected and capitalized in perpetuity and only the interest income will be made available to the not-for-profit arts organization.

The cost of fundraising activities must be borne by the operational budgets of the beneficiary arts organization.

NBFA administration costs of the grant shall not exceed 1% of the value of the grant as recorded for the preceding fiscal year.

NBFA and the beneficiary arts organization must be able to certify that current or former public office holders or public servants in their employ are in compliance with the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service, the Conflict of Interest, and the Post Employment Code for Public office holders in all matters relating to the affairs of the applicants.