Creative New Zealand Wants To Better Support Arts Organisations

Arts organisations across Aotearoa New Zealand are at the centre of Creative New Zealand’s latest engagement. The organisation is inviting all arts organisations to respond to four questions about the kinds of support that make the biggest impact for them and their communities.

This engagement is step two of our journey to ‘change the work we do and how we do it.’

The first step was sector engagement in 2023, focused on our contestable grants. The result is for the arts: targeted programmes, and simpler, more accessible applications.

In that engagement, artists, ringatoi, and arts organisations told Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa it needed a different approach to arts development, and to spend less time and effort on compliance.

“We’re responding to those needs by developing a common set of principles for support across the full arts organisation landscape, based on a model of support for people, purpose and impact,” Stephen Wainwright, Chief Executive Pou Whakahaere says.

We’re inviting all arts organisations across the motu to engage with us, from the 80 organisations in our existing Toi Tōtara Haemata and Toi Uru Kahikatea Investment Programmes to those who have never engaged with us before,” Wainwright says.

“We’ve seen the positive outcomes we get when we involve the sector and work with them to develop solutions together,” Wainwright says.

“Our context is changing with the end of one-off funding as part of the COVID-19 response. We understand that the financial context for arts organsations is particularly challenging given the constraints of central and local government, including Creative NZ as well as sponsorship and philanthropy. In addition, we know from our New Zealanders & the Arts research that audiences are not back to pre-Covid levels, even as arts participation continues to grow,” Wainwright says.

Arts organisations of all sizes and artforms are invited to respond to four questions as part of an online questionnaire which is open until midday, 20 May on Creative New Zealand’s website. A summary of the responses to the questionnaire will be published in July 2024.

Respond in the way that best suits you before 20 May 2024

• You can respond to the questions using the online form on our website
• You can email a written response or send a voice recording to koreromai@creativenz.govt.nz
• You can respond to all of the questions, or just the ones you’re interested in

We’ve recorded the questionnaire and the definitions of some of the words we use.

The other part of the kaupapa happens within Creative New Zealand, with a comprehensive survey of the existing reports and research we’ve collected over the years about funding impact and outcomes.

The insights from both parts of the kaupapa will be used to develop options and help shape a new approach for more effective support for arts organisations. Next steps will be shared from October 2024.

In 2025, we’ll look at how we can support communities to make decisions about the arts development that matters to them – and we’ll need your help then too.

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