The Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund offers grants to leading organisations for projects that deliver exceptional opportunities for Australian writers, journalists, editors, visual artists, teachers, and key industry stakeholders in the writing, publishing, education and visual arts sectors.
Our aim is to ensure Australian writers and visual artists are better supported and paid appropriately for their creative endeavours. We encourage all applicants to pay appropriate industry rates to writers and artists.
Our priorities for 2024/25 have changed and the Cultural Fund will offer grants to organisations to support the following:
- Audience development grants for Australian organisations for projects to increase readership and audiences for new work, writing and visual arts;
- Sector development grants for Australian organisations for projects in the writing, publishing, and visual arts sectors
In addition, we offer a commission for a visual artist through the Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) initiative, in partnership with leading galleries in Australia.
Audience Development
- Audience and reader development projects
- Commissions and payments to writers and visual artists through audience development projects
- Reviews of new Australian books in national publications
- Projects connecting teachers with Australian Literature
- Writers/artists-in-residence/schools/universities
- Literacy-based projects for children involving professional writers
- Significant national writers’ awards for payments to writers (excluding prizes offered by publishers and literary journals)
- Publishing commissions for work by First Nations and culturally diverse authors
- Three national writers’ festivals will be supported each year through an invitation-only process
Sector Development
- Sector development initiatives for the publishing industry and visual arts sector, including opportunities for First Nations and diverse editors, publishers and curators (excluding mentorships and professional development)
Projects supported include
First Nations-led organisations to deliver projects to benefit First Nations writers and visual artists.
Awards and prizes
- For writers
By invitation only
- Given the large number of festivals in Australia, the Cultural Fund will invite expressions of interest from a small number of national festivals in 2024/25
- A different set of festivals will be invited to apply in 2025/26
Commissioning fees
- Creative writers’ and picture book illustrators’ commission fees for new works of exceptional cultural significance by Australian book publishers
- New commissions for visual artists exhibited at art galleries
- Playwright commissions for work presented by mainstage Theatre companies
Career development
- Priority to support sector development by funding trade associations, and career development/leadership projects for First Nations and culturally diverse publishers, editors, and curators
- Opportunities for First Nations and culturally diverse people working in publishing, editing, and galleries
- Residencies for writers and visual artists
- Opportunities to upskill teachers in Australian literature
- Projects to enhance the Copyright Agency’s Reading Australia
Writers’ fees
- Australian literary magazines and journals
Visual artists
- See Audience and Sector Development above
- We offer a commission for a visual artist through the Copyright Agency Partnerships (CAP) initiative, in partnership with leading galleries in Australia
Click below to see successful projects we’ve supported in previous years:
2017 2018 2019 2020 EAF 2020 2021 2022 2023
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