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Grants Allocation by the Numbers

November 8, 2017

Explore trends in how our grants are allocated

The Canada Council is committed to transforming its relationship with artists and arts organizations across the country. This means increasing support to artists, collectives and organizations striving for artistic excellence and greater engagement in the arts. But it also means measuring our impact and demonstrating results to Canadians. We’re doing this, in part, by giving more public access to our funding data, and being more transparent and open about our investments.

Use the tool below to explore how Canada Council grants are allocated, and to identify patterns, trends and correlations in our funding. Click on the switch data visualization button for other ways to explore data trends.

Explore the Visualization

The graph shows grants awarded to various disciplines and provinces. The total investment is represented by the centre circle. Moving outward, each circle represents information on the distribution of funds.

► Select an order of the data categories by clicking on the sequences in the legend.
► Hover over each section to view related investments.
► Click on each section to move that section to the centre of the graph.
► Click on the circle at the center of the graph to zoom out.
► Click on the button below the graph to switch to the other visualization.

The graph shows the grants awarded to various disciplines and provinces. The total investment is represented by the yellow rectangle. Moving to the right, each rectangle represents the total amount allocated to different recipients, sections or provinces and the links show how the funds are being distributed.

► Click on the rectangles in the third column to further expand the graph.
► Hover over each rectangle to view the related investments.
► Hover over the links to view how the funds are being distributed.
► Select an order of the data categories by clicking on the sequences in the legend.
► Click on the buttons in the legend to sort the data by size or alphabetically.

Select a year:
  • All Canada Council grant figures are based on artists' or arts organizations' location at the time of approval. These figures include Prizes under parliamentary appropriation and exclude special funds, Public Lending Right payments, UNESCO and Art Bank.
  • All figures are expressed in current (nominal) dollars at the time of approval and are not adjusted for inflation.
  • All figures are based upon information as at May 1, or the next business day, of each fiscal year. Prior to the fiscal year 2014-15, they are based upon information from June 1 and, in some cases, figures rely on data from final reports of the grants. For this reason, the data does not reflect adjustments and cancellations. As a result of changes in methodology, figures in these charts are not necessarily comparable to figures in other documents created by the Canada Council for the Arts.
  • Dollar amount of support that was recommended, usually by peer assessment committees. In a small number of instances, such as Travel Grant programs and Visiting Foreign Artists programs, grants are recommended by internal assessments by Canada Council staff. This amount is subsequently approved by senior staff or the Board. In some cases, payment of the full amount is conditional on the recipient’s supported activities. Some amounts may be affected by activity cancellations and those cancellations are not included in this dataset.
  • In 2016-17, the majority of investments in the “Arts Granting” section were awarded through New Chapter, an exceptional, one-time program.
  • Visit our interactive website Stats and Stories to learn more about the Canada Council’s grant funding and explore our data further.