See what activities cannot be funded by Creative New Zealand.
Your programme of activity or project (or the phase of your project for which you are applying) must not have received funding from any other Creative New Zealand fund or opportunity, including the Creative Communities Scheme.
Some activities can only be supported by specific funding programmes.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Berlin Writer's Residency
- Aotearoa delegation to the Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture
- Translation Grants
- International Promotional Fund for Literature
If you are in any doubt about which funding programme to apply to, contact our Funding Services team at funding@creativenz.govt.nz for advice
To make best use of our resources we fund arts activities that achieve our programme outcomes within specified artforms.
There are other government agencies with mandates in the wider cultural, arts, creative and community sectors. We aim to ensure our investment complements that of other agencies, avoids duplication, and ensures effective and efficient use of public money. We encourage you to check which agency may fund your type of project or activity.
Creative New Zealand does not support the same project phase already supported by other government agencies who provide arts and culture funding. You can however apply for a different project or a different phase of the same project, if eligible. Please check our artform guidelines and additional guidelines regarding activities we do and don’t fund. See Guidelines - Artforms and Guidelines - Activities.
Creative New Zealand and other funders share relevant information on applications for the purpose of ensuring there is no duplication of funding.
Government agencies supporting the arts, cultural and creative sector where duplication could occur:
- Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage – Arts and Culture COVID Recovery Programme. (Support from Manatū Taonga Cultural Sector Emergency Relief Fund, the Arts and Culture Event Support Scheme, and the Grant for Self-Employed Individuals are not considered project funding.)
- New Zealand Film Commission.
- NZ On Air. Creative New Zealand does not fund content for television and radio.
- New Zealand Music Commission.
- New Zealand History Research Trust and Ngā Kōrero Tuku Iho, New Zealand Oral History Grants.
- Te Matatini. Creative New Zealand supports a range of ngā toi Māori artforms within kapa haka but will not fund activities or programmes already funded by Te Matatini in relation to whakataetae (competition).
- Te Māngai Pāho. Creative New Zealand does not fund content for television and radio.
- Te Puni Kōkiri.
We recognise that other government agencies whose general mandate is not within the arts and culture sector may wish to support an arts project. A project involving a partnership and/or co-investment with another government agency may be funded, but budget lines funded by these agencies will not be funded by Creative New Zealand.
We do not support activities carried out or supported by agencies directly funded by government i.e., New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Radio New Zealand for example.
CNZ funding cannot be used for buying capital items, renovating or buying buildings, or restoring marae.
There are other agencies and funders that may be able to help with the cost of conducting capital works. Please refer to Other Sources of funding and support.
We do not fund the development or delivery of core classroom programmes or resources for students as part of the curriculum for early learning, school or further education as this is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education.
However, we can support arts projects by, with and for young people that complement what the education sector provides in delivery of the arts and ngā toi learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum.
We do not fund people to attend early learning, school or further education in New Zealand.
The activities that we consider to be beyond core business include:
- University publishers publishing high-quality works of literature by New Zealand authors for a general New Zealand readership
- University galleries delivering activities that meet our Public Museums and Galleries guidelines. See Guidelines - Activities
- Residencies for New Zealand artists, but the application needs to show how the artist’s activity will be distinct from the institution’s ongoing educational programme. See Guidelines - Activities
- Personal arts projects by employees of tertiary institutions, but the application must disclose the full extent of the support they will receive from their employer for the proposed project.
Applications, whether made by a Territorial Local Authority (TLA) or Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) or another individual or organisation, for projects involving activities associated with a TLA or subsidiaries of council (e.g. a CCO) need to demonstrate clearly how the proposed activity sits outside the TLA/CCO’s core business, by showing:
- that the council hasn’t previously delivered this activity
- that the activity is not included in any key planning documents e.g. arts and culture strategy, annual plan
- that the activity is not identified in current agreed workplans and/or operating budgets
To demonstrate the above please include, as an attachment to your application, the relevant sections of key documents and make the above explicit in your application.
Metropolitan and regional galleries and museums, which are core funded by central and local authorities should refer to our Public museums and galleries guidelines. See Guidelines - Activities
To make best use of our funding we focus on specific artforms. However, we’re unable to fund all creative practices, including fashion design, game design and commercial design.
We support some design projects through our Craft/Object and Visual arts artforms.
- Through Craft/Object we support furniture and object-based design projects. Our focus is on supporting independent studio-based designers to develop new work and present it publicly, but we don’t support commercial manufacture.
- Through Visual arts we support 2D design projects, for instance typography, poster design, graphic design and publication design.
- We can also support non-commercial projects that recognise and build on the interaction between design and arts practice.