The Dunedin City Council’s grants subcommittee will convene today to allocate funding to arts, cultural and community organisations from its City Service, City Project grants.
The fund, valued at $227,900, received applications from 13 arts organisations and 15 community organisations focused on social wellbeing.
Dunedin deputy mayor, Sophie Barker, said these numbers were not unusual and showed the arts community was working hard.
"All sectors, including arts and culture have been hit by Covid and the DCC has done its best to support them through the last few years, including introducing a Covid fund.
"The amount of applications shows that Dunedin has a great arts scene which is working hard to bring arts to the community."
A report submitted before the subcommittee said the fund supported organisations, "deemed critical to Dunedin’s community fabric and longer-term sustainability."
Among the applicants were the Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust, which applied for a $35,000 grant to contribute to the wages of their permanent staff members.
They had previously raised concerns about developing multi-year funding options, as the project-based funding they applied for was damaging to their year-round efforts.
The Dunedin Community House had applied for a $60,000 grant to help with general operational overheads, alongside Otago Access Radio who had applied for $55,000.
Ms Barker said the council would be conducting a grants review to discuss a better process to allocate grants funding for organisations that support the city.
"Council invests millions of dollars in our communities and wants them to thrive — we just need to sort out better mechanisms for making sure it happens."
