Slippery Olympic funding for culture
The Georgia Straight has a little guide to Olympic arts funding that all arts groups should find interesting. “Olympic arts plan sketchy” describes the six pots of money dedicated to arts and culture programming leading up to and during 2010:
- Pot of money No. 1 is in the hands of VANOC, and is worth $96 million. That’s the money for the four-year Cultural Olympiad, the Torino Olympics closing ceremonies, education and youth programs, the torch relay, and the 2010 opening and closing ceremonies.
- Pot of money No. 2 is distributed through the new nonprofit ArtsNow. This organization, which is completely separate from VANOC, must distribute $12 million before July 2007. The mandate: to increase the capacity of B.C. arts organizations so they can participate fully in the Olympics.
- Pot of money No. 3 is the Spirit of BC Arts Fund, $20 million administered by the B.C. Arts Council. Its mandate also includes capacity-building and the commissioning of new works.
- Three other pots of money are not formally Olympics-related, but coincidentally arrived just in time for the event: the B.C. government’s $25-million gift to the Vancouver Foundation; the additional $3 million per year to the B.C. Arts Council; plus the $6 million in increases to Vancouver’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
As Heather Redfern of the Alliance for Arts and Culture goes on to say in the article, arts groups must keep a close eye on this money and aggressively advocate for it so that it isn’t diverted to sport-related uses. For a detailed analysis on the experience in other host communities, check out this PDF: “Potential Impact of the 2010 Olympics Games on Local Arts and Culture in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor”, a research piece by Anne Popma for the Whistler Arts Council.
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