During the month of March 2023, DoGood Fundraising was invited to present deep-dive workshops on fundraising by the South Asian Dance Alliance of Canada (SADAC).
We travelled to Vancouver, Stouffville, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton and Winnipeg. We met with almost 100 participants during the series, who identified the challenges associated with presenting artistic work in Canada.
The workshops which we delivered were 3-hour deep dives, which introduced grant writing, and provided information on common challenges. Each workshop resulted in significant discussions, and many questions asked by participants. Since workshops were local, each city included a presentation on specific grant opportunities which were available to artists.
There were common trends which we observed:
– Many arts leaders are not applying for grants and are operating without financial support. This was because they often didn’t understand how to apply for grants, where to look for these opportunities, or which steps to take first.
– We met non-profit leaders in each city, who had decided to set up registered non-profit organizations to support the development of the artistic practice. These leaders were often not aware of the broad support available outside of the arts sector.
– Many individual artists have not received formal capacity building training or support with regards to grant writing, prospect research, or how to obtain sponsorship support. We believe that the federal and provincial government has a role to play in disseminating this information, through capacity building support. Providers such as DoGood Fundraising can fill this gap by providing non-partisan training and support in this subject area.
We are grateful to SADAC and Canadian Heritage for their support of the capacity building workshop series. We look forward to collaborating with sector leaders such as SADAC to build a stronger arts sector in Canada.
