Derry City & Strabane District Council: Cultural Organisation Fund

Overview

The fund is open to cultural organisations incurring ongoing year round core costs in the delivery of their arts and cultural programming.

Who Can Apply?

Your organisation must:

• Be a cultural organisation. This means that your constitution or memorandum and articles of association (the document that governs how the organisation is run and its purpose) must state that arts, heritage, museum or culture is a primary objective of the organisation.
• Be resident within the DCSDC area. You will be required to submit evidence of same.
• Be a legally constituted group and supply evidence of this (e.g. constitution or memorandum and articles of association).
• Have ongoing year-round costs.
• Have paid full-time staff (or a number of paid part-time staff that is equivalent to having at least one full-time member of staff) on its payroll throughout the year
• Have an operational and programming focus in the DCSDC area.
• Be a not-for-profit organisation.
• Have up-to-date annual and management accounts signed as agreed by the board or management committee and supply copies of same.
• Hold a bank account in the organisation’s name and provide evidence of this.
• Have a board or management committee.
• If relevant, have a child protection policy, vulnerable adults policy and equal opportunities policy and keep to relevant laws including the Race Relations (NI) Order 1997, the Sex Discrimination (NI) Order 1976, Fair Employment and Treatment (NI) Order 1998, and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
• Commit to completing required audience returns, based on a standardised sectoral methodology as defined by the NW Audience Development Programme.

General Principles

• This is a competitive scheme and applications will be determined on the basis of merit.
• Applications to this scheme will be open to all arts and cultural organisations that can meet the core criteria of the scheme. Applicants will be able to apply to other sources of public support.
• Organisations in receipt of public funding must comply with all statutory obligations regarding the delivery of their cultural programming and access to their venues.
• It is a prime responsibility of Council to ensure the proper and efficient use of and the accountability of public monies. To this end, cultural organisations will be required to provide relevant supporting information when applying for funding.
• The organisation completing the form must be the same organisation that will receive and manage the grant. They will not consider an application made by one organisation on behalf of another.
• The deadline for submission detailed on the application form is absolute. Council will not accept late submissions to this fund.

How does the fund work?

• There is one round of funding per financial year.
• The Cultural Organisations Fund is for grants up to a maximum of £17,000 in any financial year or 5% of your organisations expenditure specific to arts, heritage, museum or cultural activity (whichever is lesser) based on your most recent set of audited accounts. Evidence of same will be required.
• Only one successful application (regardless of amount) can be held by any organisation in the financial year.The fund will cover Core Costs only. The core costs deemed eligible under this fund do not include hospitality, alcohol, salaries & wages, repayments of debts, retrospective grants or capital build expenditure.
• Organisations in receipt of a Service Level Agreement from DCSDC for 2021/22 are not eligible for this fund.
• Successful applicants cannot claim grant aid from both the Cultural Organisations Fund and the Community Centre Venue Fund for 2021/22.
• Successful applicants will have to complete any outstanding impact assessment reports before payment is released.