National Arts Council invests in creativity with R49m in grants
The National Arts Council (NAC) is delighted to announce that it has notified the arts organisations and individuals whose funding applications have been successful for this financial year.
A total of 237 organisations and individual projects, across the nine provinces, have received grants totalling R49-million, with bursary funding for 2020 due to being announced soon. The total comprises R23-million for arts organisations and R26-million for arts practitioners and projects.
Grants were made in the following programmes:
- Social cohesion and nation-building
- Innovation, design and creation
- Arts platforms/showcases/exhibitions/festivals
- Strategic initiatives
- Capacity building
“We are delighted that, once again, the NAC has made a substantial contribution towards ensuring that artists and artistic endeavours can continue with their important and creative work that also uplifts the people and the nation,” said Rosemary Mangope, CEO of the NAC.
Awarded projects have been chosen because of their national significance and their impact on communities, she noted. Grants have also been made to arts organisations that support the involvement of women, youth and people living with disabilities, particularly in historically disadvantaged areas.
Mangope said the process had been thorough and exhaustive, with the NAC performing extensive checks and balances in order to ensure transparency and guard against corruption. These safeguards included:
- Organisations and individuals that had been funded in the past underwent financial checks in order to ensure they had accurately accounted for prior funding that had been awarded; and
- Successful applicants were put through an ID-verification process in order to ensure that the convenor of the organisation had not changed – either in terms of the person running the organisation or that person’s circumstances. ID verification was also carried out to avoid duplicate funding of projects where applicants had different names.
The NAC has finalised the process and notified successful applicants. Their names are listed on the website (nac.org.za).
The process that will be followed regarding the release of funding to successful applicants is as follows:
- A grant notification letter is sent informing applicants whether they have been successful or not.
- The Department of Communications is also informed, and it places a notice on the NAC’s website and noticeboard listing the successful applicants.
- An agreement of funding is sent to successful applicants, which must be signed and returned in duplicate, accompanied by a revised budget and action plan.
- The documents are all checked and appropriately recorded – this process is performed by the arts development officers.
- The arts development officers complete a request for funding document, which is then sent to the CEO for sign-off.
- Once the document has been signed off, the finance department loads the contracts on the system as recipients and pays the first instalments.
Henri Matisse said, “Creativity takes courage” – and the NAC congratulates these grant recipients and looks forward to seeing the courageous outcomes of their creativity.
Issued by Flow Communications on behalf of the National Arts Council (NAC) For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Ayanda Siswana at ayanda@flowsa.com or on +27 (0)11 440 4841.