Arts Council of NI: Commissioning Programme

Overview

The finished work should be in a form capable of being presented, exhibited, published, performed and/or disseminated in its entirety at the point of completion in Northern Ireland (if applicable abroad) either live or online.

This programme prioritises applications that:

• Propose commissions of high artistic quality;
• Are planned to reach significant audiences primarily in Northern Ireland through live performance, exhibition, publication, broadcast, recording, and/or other audience channels;
• Provide for an extended life and/or extended public reach and impact for the work or project that has been created;
• Demonstrate a strong collaborative-engagement process between the commissioner, performers and the commissioned artist(s) in the development of the new work; and
• Demonstrate innovation and deepen the experience and understanding of the artform.

All awards and programmes are informed by the Arts Council’s 5-year strategic framework (2019–24), Inspire, Connect & Lead.

Commissions may be applied for across all artform areas supported by the Arts Council. Proposals may also be cross-artform.

Who can apply?

The Arts Council welcomes applications from the widest possible range of organisations. You will be required to provide proof that you have a legal constitution.

How many applications can you submit?

You may submit only one application. However, you can include a number of commissions within the one submission.

You will be required to give full project details and budgets for each individual commission. The Council may choose to fund all, some, or no elements of your application.

How much funding isavailable?

The maximum award available is £25,000.

Even though the Arts Council will only fund the commission fee you propose to pay the artist, you must provide details of all income and expenditure relating to the project in order to demonstrate the overall viability of the commission in terms of its public engagement.

What can you apply for?

The Commissions Award only supports fees paid to the artist(s) by the commissioner. All other costs relating to the rehearsal, production, presentation, exhibition or dissemination of the commissioned work must be borne by the commissioner.

PLEASE NOTE: For visual art commissions, commissioning fees can include the creation of new
work for exhibition.

You must supply the details of all proposed expenditure and income in appropriate detail in a budget document which is uploaded with your application.

Proposed expenditure should include:

• The fee you propose to pay the commissioned artist* from Arts Council funding
• Any additional fee you propose to pay the commissioned artist from any other sources of funding
• All performance costs, venue-hire costs, technical costs, promotion and publicity costs, administrative costs, etc. of the performance(s) or other public event(s) for which the work is being commissioned.

Proposed income should include what you expect to receive from other funders, box-office receipts, programme sales, commercial sponsorship, etc.

It is important to include all in-kind support** in both income and expenditure, to reflect the full and true value of your proposal, and to provide an indication or verification (where possible and appropriate) of the security of projected income.

* Note on Artists Pay: The Arts Council is committed to improving the pay and conditions of artists. They have published ‘Rates of Pay for Artists Guidance’ on the fair and equitable remuneration and contracting of artists. It is important that you refer to this document in advance of making your application. You will be asked as part of the application process to set out how you will ensure proper pay and conditions for the artists that you work with. This will help us assess the feasibility of your application.

** Note on In-kind Support: If you expect to receive in-kind support, you need to put a financial value on it so that the contribution it makes to the real value of your proposal is clear. You should think of in-kind support both as income and expenditure, ie., whatever amount you declare on the income side, you should also declare on the expenditure side. Time contributed by directors or board members may not be included as an in-kind cost.

Access costs for D/deaf and Disabled artists

In addition to the maximum amount permitted, the Arts Council will also consider access costs specifically relating to the making of work by D/deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent artists. An amount of up to £3,000 each year is available within the grant for successful applicants who can clearly demonstrate that additional costs are associated with the delivery of their project for people with particular needs as defined under Section 75 of The Northern Ireland Act 1998. If you wish to apply for additional funding on this basis, please note that you will need to upload the following information with your application: throughout the commissioning project

• A short document outlining your additional access costs
• An amount for access costs in the expenditure section of your application-form budget. This figure should also be included in the total amount you request.

What is an access cost?

Access costs for D/deaf, Disabled, and Neurodivergent artists cover any requirements you may have in order to remove barriers that might stop you from completing your proposal. In the proposal this may include, for example, costs towards additional time needed to complete an element of your proposal or additional assistance required to deliver your proposed activity. For further advice please contact the University of Atypical (028 9023 9450).

Mandatory Enclosures for Applicants

These are the documents which you must provide in conjunction with your application. Some of these must be uploaded to your online application via the attachments page; others must be uploaded to the Government Funding Database.

You must upload the following before submission. Further detailed guidance on these enclosures is included from page 12 of the Guidance notes:

• Your organisation’s Constitution and/or Memorandum and Articles of Association (if not available on the Government Funding Database)
• Most recent set of Audited/Certified Accounts – up to 31 March 2022
• Management accounts – if your accounts are not for 2021/22, ie up to the period 31 March 2022, you must upload a set of management accounts up to 31 March 2022 with your application.
• Detailed budget for the proposal
• CVs of artists to be commissioned, to include details of past works.
• At least one and up to Max 3 samples of previous work of the commissioned artist(s).
• IF applying for additional access costs, a short document outlining access costs.

Government Funding Database (GFD)

As part of Government’s Reducing Bureaucracy programme, you are required to upload a number of master documents to the Government Funding Database (GFD). Many organisations in receipt of Arts Council funds are already registered with this database; others will be required to register prior to the application being assessed. Once uploaded, these documents will exist for all applications you make to any Government department and you will not be required to submit them with individual applications, including future applications to the Arts Council.

If you are based in Northern Ireland, upload required documents on the Government Funding Database at https://govfundingpublic.nics.gov.uk/Home.aspx

If you are based outside Northern Ireland you MUST upload the 2 documents listed above AND all the mandatory enclosures listed on page 10 at the time of submitting your online application.

Please keep in mind the following important points:

• All mandatory enclosures must be in the accepted formats as listed on page 12 of the Guidance notes. They cannot accept documents in other formats.
• The total size of all your uploaded documents should not exceed 25 Mb.
• You must submit all necessary enclosures with your application form. If any enclosures are missing, your application will be ineligible.
• If you submit an enclosure in a format which we do not accept or which is corrupted or which we cannot open, the enclosure will be considered missing and your application will be ineligible.
• Do not compress files into one zip file. Files must be uploaded as individual documents.
• All data must be PC compatible. If non-PC compatible data is supplied, your application will not be assessed. For example, if using a MAC, it is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that any enclosures uploaded to the online application are PC compatible.
• Unless explicitly stated as permissible in the Mandatory Enclosure details below, the submission of weblinks or website addresses in lieu of enclosure documents is not acceptable and will result in your application being made ineligible. Please check carefully.
• Use of Dropbox or similar cloud-based storage is not permitted as Arts Council cannot access sites of that nature.