Program guidelines
The Arts Activities in Regional Communities grant program provides funding for projects that support participation in, access to and creation of arts and culture in regional Western Australia.
The 2 categories are:
The key dates calendar has opening and closing dates, activity start dates and draft review deadlines.
Please apply using the Online Grants web portal.
More information about how to apply can be found in the application manual.
For arts and cultural projects in regional WA that align with the following objectives:
Funding for Arts and cultural activities and creative developments in regional Western Australia.
Examples of arts and cultural activities that can be funded through this program include workshops, festivals, development of new creative works, and presentations.
Activities must:
Funding for Regional local governments to develop creative and cultural plans or revise existing plans.
Examples of arts and cultural activities that can be funded through this program include regional local government managed community engagement and consultation processes related to developing creative and cultural plans.
Applications that involve collaborations with multiple local government authorities (LGA) or that demonstrate consultation with neighbouring LGAs and the regional development commission will be highly regarded.
*If applying from outside regional WA, you must provide evidence of support from, and benefits to, relevant regional communities.
*If applying on behalf of Aboriginal people, you must provide evidence of significant Aboriginal involvement in project conception, development and delivery.
You can request up to 80% of your total project cost. You must demonstrate at least 20% income from other sources (this can include in-kind income) or your application will be ineligible.
The amount of funding requested should be based on:
The key dates calendar has application opening, closing and activity start dates.
You are encouraged to submit your application before the closing date to ensure you have plenty of time to allow for technical or eligibility/resubmission issues.
All times are in AWST (for Perth, Western Australia).
Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application approximately 12 weeks after the closing date.
Processing of grant payments to successful applicants will not start until after the grant contract is signed and returned. Depending on the activity start date, we cannot guarantee notification and/or availability of grant funds before the activity begins.
Your application will be ineligible and will not go through to assessment if you:
You can only submit one application per category per round.
Applications to this program do not count towards the general DLGSC Culture and the Arts grants’ 2 application limit (which applies to the Arts Projects for Organisations and Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups programs).
Activities must be completed within 18 months of the eligible start date.
More information on how to apply can be found in the application manual.
There are 4 components of a grant application:
Each plays a significant and distinct role in creating a whole picture about your activity.
Your answers to the core application questions should give assessors an overview of your activity.
Each question has a 1500-character limit. If you need more information on how to prepare your application, please read the application manual.
You can extract a copy of your draft application in Online Grants at any stage to share with others for their feedback.
Please ensure your activity meets the most current COVID-19 health guidelines.
Provide an overview of your planned activity. Your overview should identify the artform/s, type of activity, when and where it is taking place, and who is involved.
Describe the communities and groups you are engaging through your activity. How does this activity respond to their needs and interests?
Further information can be provided in your support material through the inclusion of letters of support from participating communities and groups.
Identify the key project coordinators (organisations and/or individuals) and creative professionals responsible for delivering the activity. Describe their roles and relevant expertise.
Further information can be provided in your support material through the inclusion of consultant biographies, artist biographies, organisation profiles, examples of artwork, and media excerpts, reports or reviews that demonstrate previous relevant work or experience.
Outline the expected outcomes of your activity. Consider how your outcomes align with the program objectives. Explain how you will measure and evaluate your outcomes.
Describe any paid work or professional development opportunities that will be undertaken by regional people to deliver this activity. This includes opportunities for creatives, production staff, technical crew, project coordinators, cultural workers and mentees.
Outline the key processes and stages of your project. Include when and where the key stages will occur and who is involved.
Further information can be provided in your support material through the inclusion of project plans and timelines.
Outline your plans for engagement, marketing and promotion of your activity to your target audiences and participants.
Further information can be provided in your support material through the inclusion of marketing and community engagement plans.
You are required to provide relevant project outputs. An output is a specific measurable thing that is generated by your project. This information will be considered as part of your application and provide further clarity about your project for the assessor. The outputs also provide important data for the department for research, analysis and advocacy purposes.
You only need to provide outputs for the categories and items relevant to your project.
If your application is successful, you will be required to report against your planned project outputs in your acquittal report.
Refer to the application manual for an explanation of the project output questions.
Please contact us if you have any questions.
The financial information in your budget helps to demonstrate that all elements of your activity have been considered, thoroughly researched and costed. A good budget also provides confidence for the DLGSC that your activity will be a sound investment for the State of Western Australia.
You should indicate which expenditure items you want the DLGSC to support. List those items in the ‘Additional Notes’ section of the application budget page.
If you are registered for GST you should not include GST in the budget figures. All amounts should be in Australian dollars.
Your funding request is the difference between your expenditure minus your income. To ensure this amount is calculated accurately, seek quotes for all expenditure items (whether or not you intend to include these as support material) and include all costs associated with the activity, even if they are supplied in-kind.
Many activities will include in-kind contributions in the form of offering something for free or at a discount. More information on in-kind expenditure and income as well as an example of how to demonstrate your in-kind support follows this section.
For each expenditure or income item you add to the budget, use the notes area alongside the item to explain how that item relates to the delivery of your activity and how the cost was calculated.
Expenditure items can vary significantly from one activity to another. Any legitimate expense that is eligible may be included in the budget.
Do not duplicate costs in the budget form. For example, if you receive a quote for advertising which includes design, do not add an additional item for design. Simply use ‘advertising’ as the expenditure item and add a note explaining that the cost includes design.
Make sure you check the list of what you can't apply for.
Expenses related to the management and administration of the activity. For example, telephone/internet, insurance, postage and stationery. Eligible expenditure items in this category may also include audit costs and accessibility costs (expenditure associated with making your activity accessible to participants or audiences with a disability).
Costs associated with marketing to your target audience. For example, information, promotion and audience engagement activities, advertising, graphic design, merchandise photography, videography, public relations and production of marketing collateral.
Costs related to the remount, production and delivery of the activity or its deliverables, including the costs of presentation and exhibition. Eligible items may include venue hire, lighting hire, set construction, manufacturing costs, recording fees, rehearsal space hire, props and audio-visual costs.
Expenditure in this category should include salaries, fees and allowances for all key personnel, with separate components itemised in the budget notes. We support appropriate rates of pay for all people involved in your activity. Refer to the following websites for information on industry standard payment rates:
If these standards do not apply to your activity, then you must outline how reasonable rates have been calculated. For long-term activities, it may be appropriate to pay artists a rate based on a yearly salary for a similar kind of work. If this is the case, you need to clearly explain the rationale for the pay rate in your budget notes.
All rates should be relative to level of experience.
Please note that organisations, such as Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, predominantly provide information on minimum base rates for employees engaged on a full-time, part-time or casual basis. Rates for artists and arts workers engaged as contractors will include a loading to cover the costs of being self-employed. Full-time, part-time and casual rates do not factor in these costs and should not be used when engaging contractors.
Costs associated with transporting people, equipment or goods. Eligible items may include fares (taxi, airplane, bus etc.), tolls, land or air freight, and vehicle hire.
This program does not fund 100% of your activity costs so you must demonstrate at least 20% income, which may include in-kind support, or your application will be ineligible.
May include ticket sales, product sales, performance fees, royalties, artwork and/or merchandise sales. For performances, this amount should factor in the number of performances, average ticket price and projected venue capacity.
List any income received through sponsorship from corporate bodies or businesses. Income received through government sponsorship should be included in the relevant government income category.
May include contributions from fundraising, crowdfunding, donations, gifts and bequests.
All grants and sponsorship being sought from local government, State Government, Commonwealth Government, the Australia Council, and other government sources must be included, whether or not this support has been confirmed. If your application is to be assessed by a peer assessment panel, we will attempt to confirm the status of any pending funding applications directly with the funding body prior to the panel assessment. Do not include department grant funds being requested as part of this application.
If you are making a cash contribution, or someone is providing cash to the activity, list this item as a cash contribution or similar. Include any other income source that does not fit within any of the above categories and provide enough detail to identify the income source.
Some expenses may be offered to you for free or at a discount. This might be borrowed equipment, the use of a rehearsal space, donated or discounted goods or services, volunteers (including you), negotiated discounted fees and allowances. Anything given to your project at no expense to you is considered in-kind.
All in-kind items must be included as a budget item under the in-kind expenditure category. The corresponding recognition of in-kind income is created automatically in your online application, and you do not need to enter any in-kind income budget items. The total in-kind expenditure must always equal the total in-kind income.
If, for example, you are hiring a venue, which would normally charge $2000, and you have successfully negotiated an $800 (40%) discount, you would include venue hire fee as a budget item under the expenditure category of $1200 and $800 under the in-kind expenditure category.
This section of the budget provides an opportunity for you to detail any additional information you feel may help to clarify items within your budget. For example, for fees and salaries you can indicate in this section how you calculated your amount.
You should use this section to indicate which expenditure items you want the department to support.
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) considers any grant payment to be taxable income for the purposes of your annual income tax return. You are encouraged to discuss your tax implications with your tax agent or the ATO prior to applying for a grant.
If you are registered for GST, you must show your expenditure items exclusive of the GST component. For example, you have been quoted $550 including GST for lighting hire. In your expenditure budget you would only show lighting hire of $500. If your activity is funded, the department payment will include a 10% GST component to cover those items on which GST is payable.
If you are not registered for GST, you must show your expenditure items inclusive of the GST component. For example, you have been quoted $550 including GST for lighting hire. In your expenditure budget you would show lighting hire of $550. If your activity is funded, the department payment will include the GST component for those items on which GST is payable.
Support material is essential to allow assessors to fully gauge the value of your activity and your readiness to undertake the activity. The support material you choose should provide further information and evidence to support the project outlined in your application.
Your choice of support material should help to demonstrate the four assessment criteria: quality, reach, good planning and financial responsibility, as well as how your project will meet the objectives of the program. See How will my application be assessed.
For this program, the following items are mandatory must be included within the limits noted above.
For this program, there is one downloadable form which must be included with the application. These forms are not counted as part of the support material limits:
Further details regarding the support material items can be found below.
Please note:
Maximum 20 A4 pages of text, in PDF or Word format. Preferably in a single document (maximum file size 5 MB. All text must be legible at 100%). Note: weblinks are not accepted.
Examples of material you may wish to include:
*Can include multiple screenshots of emails and quotes. We suggest taking a screenshot of the essential information and pasting up to 4 per A4 page so they are still legible when viewed at 100%.
Maximum 10 images in one PDF or Word document or up to 10 image files (maximum file size 5 MB with one line of text caption permitted for each image) .
Note: weblinks are not accepted.
Examples of material :
Maximum 4 links to audio and video content not exceeding 12 minutes combined listening or viewing time.
Audio and/or video files must be uploaded to file streaming sites like Vimeo, YouTube, Bandcamp or SoundCloud that do not require a log-in to access. Do not use Spotify.
You can find instructions on how to use these sites at the following links:
Examples of material:
Applicants to this program can request a draft review when the application is complete. Check the key dates calendar for the draft review deadline.
You can request a draft review any time before the draft review request deadline. Only one request for review can be submitted per application.
You are strongly encouraged to make the request for a draft review well before the deadline to give staff enough time to provide feedback as well as time for you to update your application on receipt of the review.
Contact onlinegrantsupportca@dlgsc.wa.gov.au if you require assistance requesting a draft review in Online Grants.
Applications to this funding program are assessed by peer assessment panel(s). A high volume of applications may require multiple peer panels for assessment.
All applications are assessed against 4 criteria:
Each has a subset of dimensions and weightings which can be found below.
More information about the dimensions and definitions, which have been developed by artists and creatives representing their sector, can be found in the application manual. You are not expected to address all dimensions and definitions, only those most relevant to your application.
Your activity must meet at least one of objectives of the category to be successful. Assessors will consider your application against the relevant dimensions and definitions and allocate a weighted score for each of the four criteria.
See the application manual for more information about how your application will be assessed.
Final approval of successful applications depends on available budget and approval by the Minister or delegated authority.
Weighting 25%
Quality refers to the level of artistic and cultural significance of the activity. Quality may be demonstrated by, but not limited to; examples of previous work, sector support, timeliness of the work and a strong history in your area of practice. It may also be demonstrated through the skills and experience of the people involved in the activity, and the alignment of those skills and experience to deliver the project.
Weighting 35%
Reach refers to the level of impact the activity is likely to have. Reach may be demonstrated by including information for; networking opportunities, relevant marketing and promotional strategies, number of participants and the potential increase in audience or markets.
Weighting 20%
Good planning refers to the level of consideration which has been given to practically undertaking the activity. Good Planning can be demonstrated by, but not limited to; carefully considered preparation, confirmation of key personnel, a realistic timeline and achievable outcomes, documented research and/or consultation, and a process of evaluation.
Financial responsibility refers to the sound management of the budget. Financial responsibility can be demonstrated by but is not limited to; efficient use of resources, reasonable expenses and an accurate and comprehensive budget. Other sources of income have been considered and included where appropriate and the activity goes some way towards self-sufficiency.
If you are successful, you will be required to complete an acquittal report when your activity has finished. An acquittal report details your activity and how you spent the grant. The acquittal report will be available for you to access in Online Grants, via the Edit/View Report button or Reports tab on the Home page, once a copy of your signed funding agreement has been received.
Your acquittal report must be submitted within 90 days of the activity completion date as specified in the funding agreement. You will need to attach relevant documents, images and videos that substantiate the delivery of the activity and that may demonstrate the impact and outcomes achieved. As a rough guide please refer to the Support Material formats and limits as listed above for your acquittal report support materials. Refer back to your activity outcomes for guidance in selecting suitable material.
If possible, please provide your support material in one PDF document (for text and images). Audio and video material to be supplied separately as applicable.
The report will also include your activity budget and you will be required to enter all the actual figures against each budget item and add any additional items not in the original budget. Variations between budget and actual figures are acceptable; however, you must provide an explanation for large variations in the Notes for that item. As you enter actual figures, the activity profit/loss will be automatically updated and displayed at the top of the Financial Information page.
The funding acquittal report also includes the option to provide feedback to help us to continually review and improve the service we provide.
Project officers are available via telephone and email to answer queries about applications and suitability of activities to specific programs.
If you need extra assistance due to disability, language barriers or any other factor that may disadvantage you in completing your application, please contact us.
The advice provided by project officers does not guarantee the success of your application.
Due to the high number of applications received, each funding round is highly competitive.
All applications are considered on their own merits and against the assessment criteria and program objectives.
For assistance using Online Grants or to report any related technical issues, contact the Online Grants Support Team: onlinegrantsupportca@dlgsc.wa.gov.au
For enquiries relating to this funding program, including advice or assistance with your application, contact a project officer:Telephone 61 8 6552 7400Toll Free (Country WA callers only) 1800 634 541Email grantsprogramsca@dlgsc.wa.gov.au
The department is committed to supporting applicants with disability. Information can be provided in alternative formats (large print, electronic or Braille) upon request.
If you require special assistance in preparing your application, please call 61 8 6552 7400 or toll free for regional WA callers on 1800 634 541.
Family, friends, mentors and/or carers can attend meetings with you.
If you are deaf, or have a hearing or speech impairment, contact us through one of the following:
For interpreting assistance in languages other than English, telephone the Translation and Interpreting Service on 13 14 50 and ask for a connection to 6552 7400 or 1800 634 541.
Toll Free (Country WA callers only): 1800 634 541.
Email the project officers: grantsprogramsca@dlgsc.wa.gov.au