Explore and Create — Artist-driven Organizations

For artist-driven organizations, maintaining the space and resources that allow artists to experiment, collaborate, and present new work is an ongoing challenge. The Explore and Create — Artist-driven Organizations program from the Canada Council for the Arts is designed to strengthen organizations that put artists and creative processes at the centre of what they do, helping them sustain and grow their core artistic activities across Canada.

This funding stream supports nonprofit arts organizations working in the Arts and Culture sector, with an emphasis on nurturing artistic creation, encouraging new and diverse voices, and offering meaningful artistic experiences to the public. Rather than focusing on a single project, the program helps cover a portion of an organization’s overall artistic activities. Support can represent a significant share of an organization’s annual revenues, making it particularly valuable for groups that rely on stable funding to plan multi-year programming, support artists fairly, and adapt to evolving creative practices.

Available to organizations nationwide that meet certain requirements, the program operates through regular application cycles and offers non-repayable funding tailored to each organization’s scale and activities. For arts organizations looking to understand how this funding could fit into their long-term plans, exploring the full details can help clarify whether this opportunity aligns with their artistic and operational goals.