Vancouver Foundation Increases Grant Amounts

The Vancouver Foundation sent out a notice yesterday about how they are going to increase their funding efforts to help those groups that were hurt by the government funding cuts last year.  I think this is a great move but I hope the government will - eventually - restore the funding they have promised.  It isn't the best solution as any foundation out there won't be able to "save" the day.

For 2010, the Foundation will provide $800,000 in grants to arts and culture groups -- more than double its contribution in 2009.

In education, $600,000 has been allocated for 2010 -- an increase of 22% over last year.

And grants to children, youth and family projects have been increased by 9% from 2009, making a total of $900,000 available this year.

I stand by what I said in a podcast a little while back about how non-profit arts organizations need to think of the cuts as something where they need to reinvent themselves.  Depending upon arts funds from governments is not a great legacy plan and thinking outside the box is where we need to move our planning processes especially in regards to supporting the organizations.  This is a much larger discussion and we will post more ideas here in the coming days.